Uber’s attempts to improve its public image have now extended to yet another full rebrand of the business, including a new logo, characterized by its use of all-caps and thick, bold strokes, the ride-hailing giant’s branding has always felt a bit hostile. Its new font, also recently unveiled, is much more modern and friendly. And finally, Uber has done away with UBER and welcomed Uber.
The move comes two days after Uber tapped former Coca-Cola executive Rebecca Messina to lead marketing efforts.
The clean new appearance seeks to place past travails firmly in Uber’s wing mirror and will sprout everywhere that the Uber icon currently appears such as its Twitter account, website and mobile app.
To harmonise its estate of Uber will also rebadge its Uber Eats division with the same lower-case look in the Uber Move font, championing the capitalised ‘U’ to signify the business at a glance while retaining the familiar jet-black backdrop.
It last rebranded in February 2016 to show it is a “fundamentally different company”. Now it appears to be doing that again. Below is the old branding.
This is at least the fourth logo Uber has cycled through in its roughly nine-year history (even the company spokesperson wasn’t quite sure how many logos they’ve had).
In a statement, a Uber spokesperson said:
“We’re excited to unveil a new, simplified logo for the Uber app that brings back the U, is easily recognizable, and is scalable across the 660 plus cities we serve.”
Uber’s new look also reflects a desire for it to be known as a ‘platform of mobility’ by ending current confusion sown by a symbol on the current Uber app which most customers fail to associate with the firm.
The redesign process took nine months to conclude and was aided by brand consultancy Wolff Olins together with type foundry MCKL.
Earlier this summer Uber appointed its first chief privacy officer as it continued efforts to clean up its brand.
Uber has been working on the updates for the last nine months, presumably under CEO Dara Khosrowshahi’s lead. He’s been at the company as CEO for just over a year now and has spent a good chunk of that time cleaning up founding CEO Travis Kalanick’s mess. A rebrand only makes sense when you are trying to shed a company of its less-than-stellar reputation.
Worth $62 billion, Uber is the most valuable private company in the world.
