This week the city of Edmonton unveiled it’s logo rebrand and unsurprisingly a lot of people have a lot of opinions about it. Costing close to $2M, people are a little confused that this simple, one-word logo is what was chosen. So why did they opt for something so straightforward?

If we push aside the obvious factors contributing to the simplicity of the logo —which is to say the countless layers of approval it had to get from the city’s marketing team and mayor, every executive at the marketing firm which created it, Edmonton Tourism, and the province itself—we can see it’s also surprisingly on trend for the current branding era we find ourselves in.

“But what does that even mean?”

Well every industry is subject to trends, but branding and logos especially. As companies try to continue to stay relevant they must shift with the times. Though truly iconic brands stand the test of time, even the most established brands shake it up sometimes. Look at Coca Cola for example; they’ve gone through 12 logos in 130 years. That’s almost one new logo per every decade.

Love it or hate it, the new Edmonton logo follows many current trends in branding right now.

Simplicity

Less is more as many brands continue to choose to scale down their current logo or brand in favour of something more simple and clean. In fact, most of the trends listed fall under this overarching trend.

• City of Edmonton
• Second Cup
• Best Western
• Lululemon
• Instagram
• Airbnb
• Mastercard

And, &, or Just N’

Shorter names. Cleaner lines. Less is more.

• Home & Away
• Tap & Table
• Seed N Salt
• Cluck n’ Cleaver
• Meat & Bread
• Drug + Bean
• Bike and Brew

Missing Vowels

With more and more URL names taken, this might be a necessity as well as a style choice.

• Prlr
• Bldr
• Unbxd

X marks the spot

An homage to the family crests of old, X’s in logos have become the new norm.

• Local Laundry
• Annex Ales
• Jusu Bar

The times they are a-changin’

With more choice for consumers than ever, companies are doing what they need to in order to distinguish themselves from their competitors and stay up to date. Check out our recent blog on 8 Reasons Why You Rebrand to learn more on why more and more companies are choosing to reinvent. If you want to learn more on managing your brand, download our brand survival EBook below.