Minor changes to major brand identities

There’s no denying that re-branding is an exercise that requires careful consideration. Rather than create an entirely new image and lose a chunk of ( if not all ) brand recognition, many brands elect to refine there existing mark in order to update their look while not discarding any existing street cred.

If a mark is really horrible it may even undergo 3, 4 or more alterations over a period of years to ease into the desired look. But there’s subtle, and then there’s subtle…

Shown here are a few original ( left ) and recent changes ( right ) to some major brands, starting with the above Ford Mustang logo. Ford have;

…lifted the head to make the pony more proud, tipped the neck into the wind to give it a feeling of greater speed and better balance. It’s more chiseled and more defined and looks more like a wild horse.

Looked a lot like a wild horse to begin with I thought…

Comcast’s latest tweak. The new t is an improvement, the changes to the s are neither here nor there, and other than that you’d need to see one image laid over the other to view the miniscule differences.

The changes to the Philips logo are much the same. The characters are extended a little here and their while the p‘s bowls are a little move voluptuous.

DirecTV’s mark has change its matte finish for a glossy one for a web 2.0 look but otherwise remains unchanged.

Brands sometimes refine existing logos by fractions to improve legibility or for better reproduction, but do you think any of these brands needed an overhaul? For the money spent rolling out the changes you would hope so.

Was it worth it?

Obviously getting your branding right is important, and I’m not suggesting close enough is good enough, but if you hadn’t seen the changes compared here, would you have noticed at all? If not, were the changes worth it?