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You won’t believe how ugly Uber’s new logo is

And the way it was announced is so totally pompous.

 

Selena Larson

Tech

Posted on Feb 2, 2016   Updated on May 27, 2021, 6:52 am CDT

Have you ever looked a company’s blog post announcing a rebranding strategy and thought, “Wow, what a rude way to describe your thought process.” If you haven’t, now is your chance.

Uber's old logo

Uber’s old logo

Uber

Uber rolled out a new design on Tuesday, the end result of two years’ worth of design brainstorming that culminated in logos that aren’t immediately recognizable as anything beyond colorful geometric shapes. In a baffling description of his motivation, CEO and co-founder of Uber Travis Kalanick likened re-branding Uber to harshly judging someone with bad hair. 

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A video that debuted in the blog post describes Uber’s inspiration behind its redesign: bits, the smallest unit of data within computers, and atoms, the building blocks of matter. In the embarrassingly pretentious video, Uber takes credit for bridging the two tiny components that “existed in entirely different worlds” before Uber’s ingenuity combined them to create … an on-demand taxi service. 

Uber

Uber is shrugging the black and white logo that Kalanick described as “distant and cold,” by adding some colors, turning the rider app blue and the partner app red. The company also changed the font of its logo. 

Uber’s re-branding comes the day after thousands of Uber drivers in New York and San Francisco protested dwindling pay rates and unfair work practices.

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*First Published: Feb 2, 2016, 6:45 pm CST