Pentagram designs new logo and identity system for Mastercard
14 July 2016
| Lacey Glave
|
via
Creative Review
Mastercard’s logo has changed little since 1968. The brand’s name was changed from Master Charge to MasterCard in 1979, and its upright font was replaced with italics in 1990, but the core elements – overlapping circles in red and yellow – have remained largely the same.
At nearly 50 years old, it is one of the most recognisable brand marks in the world, appearing on millions of cash machines and over 2.5 billion credit cards. But while the Mastercard symbol has tremendous brand equity, it was starting to look a little dated.
The capital ‘C’ in its name placed the emphasis on card payments, yet the company’s focus is increasingly on digital payments (it has just launched a new digital payment system, Masterpass).
Mastercard says there is often confusion over what the brand does – it is not a card issuer, but rather, provides the technology used to make payments.
In an attempt to tackle this and bring the brand up to date, Mastercard has introduced a new logo designed by Pentagram. The simplified mark retains the red and yellow circles but features a new lowercase sans logotype in FF Mark.
Gone are the heavy italics and unnecessary teeth and in its place is a logo which reduces Mastercard’s most recognisable assets to their simplest form.
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