Back when I was a full-time designer, one of my favorite jobs to do was to come up with logos. I really appreciate the restrictions of logo design: you need to create an image that conveys the very concept and essence of an organization, while also having that image be able to be recognizable and reproducible on everything from a full-color computer screen to being stamped on cardboard. It’s tricky! But rewarding! Logo design isn’t easy, and most companies will evolve their logos over time, usually with the result of the logo becoming more and more simplified. That seems to be what’s happening with Mazda, who appear to have applied, in Japan, for a trademark on a new version of their flying-bird-in-a-squircle logo.
Not much is known about the potential use of the updated logo, which came to our attention via AutoGuide – will this become new badging for cars, will it be global or just for the Chinese market, and so on – but it does seem to fit a recent trend in logo design where things are getting flattened and simplified, at least compared to the trend of dimensional logos of the earlier 2000s.
Here’s the current Mazda logo next to the newly-trademarked logo:
The biggest notable change is the simplification. The beveled/chrome/photoreal effect of a chrome badge style for a logo has fallen out of favor, with most carmakers switching to simpler, flatter logos. Of course, logo design has always generally trended from complexity to simplification anyway; a well-known example of this process is the old Bell System logo:
Mazda, though, has a very different sort of logo evolution history; where the Bell System, for example, is one basic visual concept adapted over time, Mazda tends to entirely re-invent its logo from scratch. Look at their logo history:
It’s really all over the place! And yes, that 1930s one does incorporate the Mitsubishi logo, because Mitsubishi helped them to sell their three-wheeled utility vehicles. Over the years they’ve gone with stylized M’s, simple script wordmarks, representations of Wankel-type rotors, and most recently, bird-like shapes that resemble M’s.
By the way, if you weren’t aware, Mazda is one of the few carmakers named for a god, like Mercury or Saturn; in Mazda’s case, it’s for Ahura Mazda, a creator deity from Zoroastrianism.
This new flatter logo was sort of teased at the Beijing auto show, where it appeared on the front of their electric concept car, the Arata:
Actually, now that I look at it, the Arata seems to have a flattened version of the current logo; the newly trademarked one modifies the outer “squircle” into a more oval shape, and makes the flattened-V/bird shape a bit more angular, less gracefully curved. This is a bit different.
I’m curious to see what this logo gets used for; I think a switch to a flatter logo is good, though I’m not sure the changes beyond that are actually improvements, especially after seeing how a flattened current logo looks on the Arata there. Still, for Mazda, it’s remarkably consistent with what they had before, which still feels unusual for them.
I’ll keep my eyes open!
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that this is completely due to the engineers wanting to be able to easily draw these with CAD, and have it be fully constrained.
(versus being drawn by hand like an ogre)
It’s ugly, ill proportioned, boring and bland.
The problem with simplification, or more particularly the modern “minimalist” design ethos as popularized by Google’s “Material Design”, is that you can’t tell anything apart. Everything is three or four strokes, no detailing, all one colour. That might’ve worked fine in 2012 when you’re trying to grab attention on a 736×366 smartphone screen but if everything looks like that your brain has to spend extra processing time figuring out “Oh which white three shapes does this represent again?”
It’s the exact opposite of good branding, but they keep doing it anyways even years after the studies have come back and proven it’s harmful for brand recognition.
The sheer amount of money spent on these sorts of logo changes never ceases to amaze me. I remember a number of years back a large tech customer of ours was crying poor, telling us they didn’t have the money to buy products of ours that were an absolutely crucial need for them to get their products out correctly and on schedule. Yet at the very same time they were spending millions on swapping out building signage, letterhead, business cards, and all the other stuff that goes with a new logo. The change? The old logo was all in uppercase letters and the new logo went to title case (first letter uppercase, rest in lower).
The flattened version of the current logo on the EV Mazda looks fine; I’m less enamored of the modified new logo which just looks clunky. But even so, am I stupid for thinking this logo modification will have absolutely no impact on sales and that the money could have been better spent on product development or even advertising?
I actually kinda like it. Flattened is good, and the angularity is similar to some of my favorite typefaces. Fits Mazda’s clean-styling upmarket ambitions.
The real question, though, is how it fits with the overall design language of the cars it will be on.
I am so very glad that my Miata is too old for the toilet seat or seagull logos.
Ugh, minimalism.
Don’t blame minimalism here. The ’37-’59 logo, ’54-’74, and ’59-’74 logos were minimalistic and are far better.
That being said, I don’t think this new logo is any worse than the one it’s replacing. The various Mazda logos used since ’97 have all been pretty meh (and super similar, so not really worth treating them independently).
54-74 is so good
Agreed. 1934 is great, too, in its calligraphy style.
The new one looks like it was done by the guy who changed KIA to KN, with the N backwards. It’s not really an improvement. The bird is too vague – I thought it was supposed to be an M melded with an oval. This one is slowly morphing into the Infiniti logo.
So the toilet bowl is supposed to be a Wankel? Never occured to me…
Those same words played through my brain.
I don’t recognize anything in any of the logos shown that could remotely be interpreted as a Wankel rotor. And Mazda was pretty explicit about using the Reuleaux triangle in various places on the RX’s.
First Mazdaspeed now this. Big sad
I have a soft spot for the 1992-1997 logo, as my first car had that. The replacement (current logo) is nice too, but perhaps is showing its age.
The refresh is fine, I guess. Less chrome is good, though it looks more like a stamp and less like a logo. Not enough character I suppose.
One could also argue it looks a bit like an upside-down Infiniti logo (after the update), but that design also so forgettable it’s a bit of a moot point.
Better than gm’s and nissan’s recent logo changes, but that’s not saying much if anything.
P.S.: the 1975-1991 is probably my favorite of the shown logos in the article graphic, as it looks friendly but robust, and because I really like fonts that strongly resonate with primarily one brand (Volvo, most famously and consistently, for instance). The uppercase D in the midst of the lowercase “maz” and second “a” is a smidge jarring, but at least it keeps the horizontal top and bottom lines consistent. Capitalize the As like the 1954-1974 set had, perhaps? Or use the ’54-’74 but lose the italics and fix the spacing between the A and Z.
That said, I’d challenge a Japanese brand to maybe draw some inspiration from the “Eki” rail station stamps they have, if going for flat graphics. One can pack a decent amount of detail without losing the relative minimalism of the flat graphic. Kind of like Infiniti’s early logo with the inlaid pattern like the M30 had available, but more expressive and less busy.
I don’t like the added angularity. Flattening the image is whatever, but the angularity in the “wings” is not an improvement.
Between this and the Team Rocket Mazda Spirit Racing logo they are really trying to become the generic manga car company.
I hate it. When my current Mazda goes to its final rest, I’m prying off every badge to save them in case I get another Mazda in the future. #NotMyMazdaLogo
Except your new mazda will have an 8 inch diameter logo embedded in the front radar.
Flattening out the logo into that simplified shape removes a sort-of quasi-religious ecstasy that’s present in the current design. There may be hyper-militant atheists who prefer that, but stigmata-free is not for me.
Well, I can’t wait to see these with a trimmed top and bottom circle so they look like an M. It was one thing when only the Mazdaspeed crowd did it, but now I see it more on CX-5s and CX-9s.
What you’re referring to is called the “Evil M” logo
Nothing says “evil” like a 3-row family SUV…lol
When it’s a Nissan Pathfinder with no bumpers, burned out DRLs, a missing side mirror and one attached door handle running up the highway on a donut, you might as well be seeing the devil himself because nothing good is about to happen to you.
The current logo, but just flattened works best for me.
The new proposed one just reminds me of what the chosen ones will be wearing after Sky Net fucks us up for good….
Change for the sake of change is just corporate masturbation. YMMV
Shaking things up with a new logo
We’re not hanging with the old one no mo’
Shaking things up with a new logo
You won’t wanna miss it when we change our sign
Any logo that’s a chrome stylized letter in a ring with or without a black background sucks. Worst part is that many of them had better logos at some point, but then decided to go to this kind of boring crap just like their competitors. I could put a hundred European manufacturer’s logos on a dartboard and hit something better.
I’m still getting over Subaru removing the lines that used to connect the stars.
Makes me think of
WonderwomanMazdawomanEdit: maybe more Vazdawoman
Thanks, I hate it.
I don’t like it. Just seems like your typical modern styling of making everything as boring looking as possible. It looks like they started drawing and owl and gave up.
Well, it’s better than literally the same thing but fake and chromey
I do not mind the chrome logo. I have seen new Hyundai’s that the emblem now is just a sticker on the back window and it looks so tacky and cheap.
Reminds me a lot of the zeitgeist of Nissan’s newly-rendered-in-tech-white logo. Which I thought I’d hate in person, but it’s growing on me.
I had read the article about Nissan’s new flattened logo some time back but never thought much about it. This week I saw the logo on a dealership sign and it was… okay?
When I first saw it, I thought jeeze will this look cheap on a car; but then seeing it made me realize that it’s so ingrained in us that logo badging should be silver only b/c it was that way forever, mostly b/c it coordinated with the ton of other chrome trim on cars at the time. Cars no longer have all that chrome, so a non-silver badge isn’t actually that out of place. Go figure.
Jason, you need to do a deep dive into the changes Audi is making to their logo and model graphics on their cars. Specifically, the stupid “flat” four rings that looks terrible and cheap, in particular on the steering wheels and front grilles. And the new red rhombus next to the model name on seemingly all their cars? Or maybe S-line? I dunno, but it looks dumb with a random shape next to a set of letters with seemingly no consideration to spacing of the two objects. I much prefer the overlapped S/RS badge the way is was. The new A5 release is the prime example of what I’m talking about. I’ve always loved the four rings logo precisely because it’s not a plain old circle with designs/letters inside of it. I don’t think it needed further abstraction on the cars. I get it with print.
They should go back to the 59-74 logo lol
The 90s logos were kinda stupid IMO
There’s a part of me that kind of wanted to 3d print the 59-74 logo to replace the current design. Would’ve worked on my 2, but maybe less so on my CX-5 (with the radar sensor behind the front logo).
The 1937 logo if backlit properly (think that Sable from a few days ago) would actually look pretty good. Replace the grille of the the current CX-30 with that and have the ends pinch and bow up slightly to tie into the headlights’ running lights and it’d look amazing. But for some reason anything even approaching Art Deco is currently seen as heretical in corporate design.
Ooh, yeah – being not a lawyer, I wonder if Citroen could get weird about it, but as an aftermarket accessory, would be neat.
I like the 59-74 best, but it’s cute and Mazda doesn’t make any cute cars.
I hope Mazda reads our opinions and reconsiders.
The 1934 version has the most character. Maybe I’ll get that hand-painted on a future Mazda of mine.