Yesterday, Facebook revealed its new brand redesign: A rather boring all-caps makeover that shifts Facebook to FACEBOOK. The move was announced in a blog post penned by the platform's chief marketing officer, Antonio Lucio, who says the redesign is to help customers better understand who's behind the apps they use.
Specifically, the brand wants to differentiate Facebook company from the Facebook app, which will keep its own branding. "The new branding was designed for clarity," Lucio writes, "and uses custom typography and capitalization to create visual distinction between the company and app."
Take a closer look below.
Lucio then lists the various apps that fall under the Facebook brand. "Our main services include the Facebook app, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, Workplace, Portal, and Calibra. These apps and technologies have shared infrastructure for years and the teams behind them frequently work together." The new FACEBOOK logo, therefore, will be found within each separate product, marketing materials, and new company website.
NBC News suggests that the timing of the move is interesting given that the company is facing calls from politicians and governments to divide its structure, while Buzzfeed News surmises that the redesign could down to Facebook's trouble with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In June, the company received a $5 billion fine from the FTC for "violating consumers' privacy rights" and it was also accused of "repeatedly used deceptive disclosures and settings."
“Many people don't know we build these products or that our teams often work together,” Mark Zuckerberg explains in the video above. “But we believe people should, because it's important for people to know who's behind the products they use.”
In August, Facebook also announced that it would be changing the names of Instagram and WhatsApp in a bid to make its platforms more transparent. Read more about that here.
