MINI’s minimal new logo
Is a simplistic ident the ultimate in sophistication or just plain boring?
Recent years have seen a big trend in corporate identities: one by one, major businesses, as well as many sports clubs, have been simplifying their logos, crests, emblems and badges. The pretext for doing this has been that identities need to work across ever smaller cross-platform applications: laptops, iPads and phone screens and remain legible in a variety of social media manifestations. It’s been out with the complex and in with the minimal.
But whilst stripping away the extraneous is easy to do, retaining something that has some visual interest is much harder. Two recent logo changes for two major brands offer interesting insights into why the changes were made and what the rationale behind their introduction was. But more than that, as both take opposing approaches, it shows that while established brands can see a need for change, they don’t necessarily agree on what is the best way forward.
These days, more and more companies have decided they want a single logo that appears across every media, rather than different versions for different uses. In the past, many idents, especially among car manufacturers were complicated affairs, often various visual elements were used. For example, one car could include one logo on the grille, a separate bonnet motif, another variant on the rear, another on the wheels and steering wheel and yet another on the side of the car.
Then companies saw the benefit of simplifying, not just in having a single ident, but a simpler one. There are many examples of this, including Citroën, Peugeot, Renault and Vauxhall. At the same time, we saw most marques revisit how their name appears and introduce new — and in many cases — unique fonts.
Like any carmaker, MINI has worn numerous logos over the years. Originally, of course, the name was just a model designation, rather than a stand-alone marque.
Its logo, a combination of a winged wheel dates back to August 1959 when the British Motor Corporation (BMC) introduced the Morris Mini-Minor alongside the structurally identical Austin Seven. The Morris brand featured the symbol of the city of Oxford, a red ox and three blue waves. These appeared inside a circle with two stylised wings to the left and right.
By contrast, the Austin Seven — which from 1962 onwards was rebranded Austin Mini — bore its hexagonal logo above the radiator grille, showing the brand’s inscription and emblem. It was only in 1969 that the car was officially known as the Mini.
Fast forward to November 2000. Following its acquisition by BMW Group, MINI introduced a new, three-dimensional logo with a chrome look and stylised wings. And, for the first time, the MINI name also appeared in uppercase letters.
While still fairly straightforward, the logo featured shadows and shading, the elements favoured by so many car companies. Indeed, there was a time when virtually every marque had a logo that looked like it had been hewn from metal.
The MINI logo remained unchanged until now. Well actually, the new “flat design” created by German design consultancy KKLD Berlin, was first unveiled in 2015 as part of a corporate rebrand, although until now it has only been used on marketing materials and in showroom and retail environments. It did appear on the Mini Electric Concept, an all-electric model to be launched in 2019 that was debuted at the 2017 Frankfurt motor show
From March 2018 onwards, the logo will be used as the badge on all MINI models.
MINI explained the thinking behind its new ident this way: “The deliberate avoidance of shading and grey tones creates a starkly contrasting black-and-white effect that conveys the authenticity and clarity of the new brand identity.”
Whilst I agree the previous logo needed updating, I think MINI’s minimal ident has now been simplified to the extent that it’s now simply bland and looks uninspired. Leonardo Da Vinci may well have argued that “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”, but the fact is, it’s the details that add so much to any object. When it comes to logos, that can be the soul and the emotion of the brand. Remove all the details and more often than not you’re left with something that is bereft of flair and just looks boring.
Of course, when you cut things out, everything that’s left is more important. In MINI’s case, I also have an issue with the font, well two actually. Firstly, I think it should be bolder — so that the width of the individual letters matches that of everything else in the logo. And secondly, the chosen font — which I think is Helvetica — is just so uninspired. I would have much preferred a font whose angles reflect those of the horizontal lines. It appears the size of the name was chosen solely to fit within the space of two lines.
Ultimately, I guess my problem with the logo is that it could have been so much better, while still being minimal and working across the wide variety of media that identities now need to do.
Imagine how bland things would be if every company took the same approach and simplified their identity to its most minimal of elements?
But while brands like MINI have embraced the notion of delighting in simplicity, not every current rebranding has followed the same path. Indeed, another German brand with a four-letter name has done the opposite.
German discount supermarket ALDI has rebranded to give itself “a more contemporary image”. The rebranding, by German design consultancy Illion Markensocietaet has ignored all the trends towards flat design and introduced a logo that is more complex than the one it replaces. But more than that, its new identity actually looks more dated.
Like MINI, its previous logo, introduced in 2006, certainly needed an update. For a start, moving from a round-edged rectangle to a square would have been sensible, given the prevalence for that shape on social media. But ALDI decided to stay with the rectangle. It also chose to completely redesign its ‘A’ logo into something almost unrecognisable as a letter and change its font to something reminiscent of the 70s and which to the casual observer could almost read AUDI rather than ALDI. Even the positioning of the ALDI name is odd as it now has more space below it than above it.
With its brighter colour palette and bolder border colours and the introduction of gradients, the overall effect is a more three-dimensional take on the previous branding. How any of it relates to being a grocery retailer, I don’t know. How it was deemed to be better than what they had before, escapes me.
I don’t think either MINI or ALDI improved their corporate image with these two logos. MINI’s might make more sense given the uses it will be put to, but both have to go down as missed opportunities and poorly thought through designs. Don’t be surprised if each gets re-imagined before too long.
Postscript: It’s a truism that familiarity breeds content. The more you see something, the more used to it you get. What first stood out for being unpropitious can improve over time. Whilst I’m not a fan of the new MINI logo, having now seen it in the metal so to speak, I can appreciate how much better it looks when it’s in a three-dimensional form (the way it will appear on the car itself.) For a logo that’s all about “flat design” there’s a certain irony in that. And, if you were wondering, my view on the ALDI logo remains unchanged. It deserves the shortest of shelf-lives.
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