Toyota wants to be known only by its logo, following a brand redesign by The&Partnership. The move follows in the footsteps of Apple’s familiar fruit-with-the-bite-taken-out, Nike’s swoosh, or more recently Amazon’s Smile and Mastercard’s red and orange circles.
It’s the first time Toyota has updated its visual identity since 2009. Instead of a 3D silver logo with “Toyota” written in red, there’s just a monochrome logo, which is meant to identify the brand without the need to spell out its name. The new look is designed to work better in digital formats, and The&Partnership has also created a new “Toyota type” font to go with the new look.
Dan Beckett, The&Partnership’s head of art, said: “The key to this project was not to simply see it as bringing the brand identity up to date, but preparing it for years to come. As well as re-modernising the brand we also sought to bring a more premium feeling while working hard to simplify the brand architecture. Toyota has recently made great forward strides in its product design and we really wanted to see that reflected in the visual identity.”
Toyota was recently overtaken by Tesla as the world’s most valuable carmaker, although Toyota sold around 30 times more cars last year and its revenues were more than 10 times higher, so its Japanese owners are probably not too worried yet.
