Name: Why Companies Are 'Debranding'
Uploaded: 2026-03-01T10:38:32.000Z
Duration: 3 min 4 s
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In recent years, some of the world's biggest companies have discarded depth and detail to de brand.

VW shared its depth and shadow, as did Kia, Pfizer, Nissan, Durex, Intel, Toyota and a host of other major brands.

Even the munchable hero Julius Pringle had a flattening make under with shaved head, dyed moustache, dilated eyes and new pre sprung eyebrows.

But what prompted this landslide of logo de branding?

Several interlocking forces are at work, the most immediate of which is the pressure of mobile first design.

Clients used to ask, can you make the logo bigger?

Now the trick is to shrink an entire identity into a tiny digital box.

Such pixel pressure usually means returning to the 2D look of old.

Of course, this 2D look was more or less the norm until computers took over and design inflation spiraled out of control.

Anyone who has overfiltered an Instagram sunset knows the seductive lure of visual excess.

And it's a seduction to which the pros are not immune.

The ability to round corners, drop shadows, customize gradients and create complex lighting effects can easily overpower the creative brief, and

So many recent dbrands represent a return to sobriety after a spasm of software abetted intoxication.

Many of our biggest brands were born than a spirit of playful innocence that burst forth from their early branding.

Take Foursquare, Airbnb, Godaddy, Google.

As these companies grew and the stakes rose, so their logos were obliged to mature from cartoonish to corporate flamboyant to flat wacky to bland, illustrating the power of de branding to professionalize.

Company graphics are as susceptible to trends as any other design.

And as we see in the stampede of fashion's little black dress logos heralded by Yves Saint Laurent in 2012 and followed by Diane von Furstenberg, Calvin Klein, Bell, Luti, Burberry and Balmain.

Yet the most intriguing element of the D branded logo is its potential to become a portal.

Didn't just strip back its theatrical golden guilt.

It unlocked a world of possibility that's increasingly vital to brands that span genres, showcase variety, or offer 31 flavors.

For all these reasons, it seems likely that de branding will be with us for a while.

But who knows when the pendulum will swing and the trend revert to detail, complexity and personality.

After all, once a critical mass is zagged against a prevailing zig, the margin becomes mainstream, the template flips, and

I'M Ben Schott, the branding and advertising columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.