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!
As a certified Mazda person, I don’t like it. My heart still lies with the 92-97 logo as that’s when I came into my prime with cars, which just happened to be Mazda’s.
I get trying to simplify things and all, but this just seems like it was taken to the extreme. Too much taken away when there really wasn’t that much to take away to begin with.
The current logo gives a sort of craftsman/precision image. It’s like a combination of art and engineering in one symbol. The flat blue symbol is just another company logo. I’m not a Mazda fan, but I have thought since they started using the current chrome symbol that it was a statement of their “affordable elegance” image.
Almost Nightwing.
I still have fond memories of Tha early 90’s logo.
Shout out to Ford for keeping the same basic shape for a long time.
Count me in with the other commenters who prefer the existing logo
Boo. I like the late nineties one,but the current version is also better.
The new logo is getting into Tata territory
With the trend of the full brand name spelled out on tailgates and trunk lids, they should go back to the ’54-’74 or ’75-’91 era logos
“54-’74 is by far my favorite of the bunch.
“Piston engine goes boing boing boing, but the Mazda goes hrmmm”
Is the god thing true? I thought the company name was just a romanization of the name of founder Jujiro Matsuda
It’s true, there’s a link to Mazda’s site about the origins of the name.
The 2 logos they used during the 60’s are simply fantastic. Go back to using those.
I am a designer, not for logos but I know where the simplification comes from.
(The idea is) Doing this tells the world that I AM A BIG BOY. Now they’re recognizable enough they have just a little picture that a child could draw.
And more simple logos are seen as more serious and as Mazda moves up market they move away from chrome as they moved away from words in the past as they went from cheap af, to decent, to downright luxury.
I don’t care about this; just give us the EZ6 or something like it instead of more damn crossovers!
I don’t like it as much as the chrome looking one…certain ones aren’t as good as previous ones, namely Bugatti
They went from an emblem to a decal. Hmmmm.
This is some MS Paint slop and I cannot stress my disappointment.
It’s the most anti-Mazda logo they’ve had, it’s half-hearted, it’s akward, it doesn’t convey their design language or, well, anything really. I’m mad because I don’t understand it, how it came to be, who gave it the big tick of approval, it’s just bad.
Other manufacturers have gone down similar routes, but they still seem to at least have a bit of character and effort to them, this looks like a placeholder for when a real Mazda logo is unavailable.
I’m a huge fan of almost every move Mazda makes, even their less logical ones, but I just don’t get why you’d do this?
(Yes this is far too much of an opinion to have about a squircle with a vague M in it, but damn, the current Mazda logo works.)
No, I completely agree with you…it’s bad…also for example, I like the classic Bugatti emblems better than the new one
I am right here with you. This just doesn’t convey…anything. Mazda is all about the connection with the driver and this just seems like a random sticker you could buy off an Etsy account as a $2,50 add on to meet the free shipping threshold.
The irony that Mazda, a company whos design language is based on elegant complex curves, is taking the curves out of their logo and adding in stilted, awkward cuts for the bird part is absolutely painful