Mastercard Rebranding
Mastercard has rebranded itself and also got a new name, Mastercard Worldwide. What are your thoughts on this one.
See the full history details here.
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July 5th, 2006 at 6:02 am
Am I the only one that thinks of female genitalia upon viewing this?
July 5th, 2006 at 6:05 am
I don’t really like the change. The old symmetry looked nice and serious, now the two different spheres give me a different and worse feeling.
July 5th, 2006 at 6:20 am
I don’t lke it.
I don’t understand why they had to extend their name (it’s like “Mercedes Benz Wolrdwide”), doesn’t make sense to me.
the symbol is nice, but to fluffy and completely lacks character. it feels very much like running after a trend. I bet the original idea was to make 3D, but someone said, oh, everyboddy is going for 3D these days, we have to come up with something completely different …
and it reminds me of the (f*ugly) FIF wolrdcup 2006 logo…
July 5th, 2006 at 7:14 am
Like the idea, but the middle circle seems too blurry and brown .. ?
July 5th, 2006 at 7:56 am
Also the middle circle is off centre, and it kinda bugs me. Otherwise, I like it. Bold.
July 5th, 2006 at 8:30 am
And i wonder why they do it now, when the worldcup is about to end. They are official sponsors right?
July 5th, 2006 at 8:30 am
My first thoughts are also why is the center circle off center?
July 5th, 2006 at 8:40 am
What *is* the middle circle supposed to be, anyway? It resembles a depressed web button. If they were to remove that, I would like the logo.
July 5th, 2006 at 8:50 am
I’m not exactly very good with thise whole design business, so forgive me if my comments seem amateurish. I have a few thoughts about the design though.
I find this new logo somewhat overly complicated; I count 4 circles (if you count the faint white ring as a circle on its own), and they each produce their own different shades and gradients. I dunno.. it just seems like a lot to look at. I think it’s the gradients that get to me the most.
Anyone has any thoughts on that.. ?
July 5th, 2006 at 8:54 am
Same thoughts, the problem comes from the center circle… Too big, too brown, too blurry…
July 5th, 2006 at 9:12 am
its a bad logo, logo should be like motif, black and white - no gradient. It should be simple and neat, like nike, apple, mercedez benz, dell and many more.
the middle circle looks like they are having a hazy future.
July 5th, 2006 at 9:58 am
It adds a confusing element to an otherwise direct icon, leaving it muddled and grey.
July 5th, 2006 at 10:08 am
Wow, that’s just awful. Way too complex. Simple is always better I think.
July 5th, 2006 at 10:24 am
absolutely horrible. ugly ugly ugly stuff… talk about mixed messaging
July 5th, 2006 at 10:56 am
I agree with Hugh G., this is just painfully awful. It looks like somebody got a copy of Photoshop/Illustrator for Christmas and went nuts. The current logo while not exciting is simple, clean and iconic.
July 5th, 2006 at 11:39 am
I don’t like it either, the previous logo had a nice composition, this one falls apart. The element don’t really interact with eachother. We’ll have to get use to it I guess…
July 5th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
Awesome! I like how they took a super iconic simple logo and ruined it by dropping in a random asymmetrical blob.
The old two overlapping circles logo was internationally recognizible even as a 10px wide image with no text… I wonder what they’re hoping to achieve with the new look.
July 5th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
So they obviously wanted to get rid of the stripes. Fine by me. They took their brand name under the icon. Also perfectly fine.
But what I really don’t get is why they meddled with their two-circle logo, which is really iconic and has been basically unchanged for 36 years. What drove them to make their logo MORE complicated, I ask? It was a simple, universally recognized icon. And now it’s … diluted.
It’s not really bad. Just … overdone now.
July 5th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Strike that, I was misinformed and the news post is oversimplifying the facts:
“MasterCard Inc. (NYSE:MA) announced today that its principal operating subsidiary, MasterCard International, is introducing a new corporate name, MasterCard Worldwide.”
“The familiar interlocking circles that symbolize MasterCard (…) will continue to appear on all MasterCard-branded cards and at merchant acceptance locations around the world.”
(From their press release at http://www.mastercardintl.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.cgi?id=1282&category=all )
So they created and branded a superior company to differentiate between MasterCard the company and MasterCard the product. The MasterCard logo stays.
July 5th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
I guess the new circle is the “Everything Else” on the Venn Diagram of what MasterCard can be used for…
July 5th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
I was a design teacher, and a student handed that in as a project, I’d tell them to start over. Is that supposed to be a globe? A crescent moon? Yikes.
July 5th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
Yeah, the middle thing is clumsy and dark and blurry-looking. I thought logos were supposed to be crisp…
July 5th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
It looks like a mistake. also it looks a bit more vague. I liked the siplicity of the 2 inerloking circles, they ‘ve made it more complicated now and one can say that the purpose of a logo is for clear communication. This is very designy-not sure how good it would look small.
July 5th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Stop the gradient madness. it’s not good. It’s up there with cowboy boots and leggings. Someone make it stop.
July 5th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
“Hot-stamping friendly” is not considered anymore in logo design nowadays ?!
July 5th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
whoa. somebody knock some sense into the mastercard peeps. first of all, gradient sucks, i agree to what Yulia said. second, sigh.. 3d is overdone and says boringggg… third, the translucent circle thingy in the middle??? doesnt do anything! and finally the boring black bold font for mastercard worldwide doesnt compliment the logo at all..
overall, it looks like a trail design student project to me.. a very average student at that. n i wonder how much did mastercard pay for the debranding.. oops, i meant rebranding..
July 5th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
It feels like an amateur design for such a large company, and it lacks the feeling of evolution displayed in previous revisions. This reminds me of the UPS rebranding. Granted the logo was old and slightly dated, but the revision is a swimming mess of tacky gradation and design cliches. even if they just blended the middle intersection into a solid color and used slight gradients it’d be better than this.
July 5th, 2006 at 9:05 pm
Hmm, Mastercard Worldwide. Hmm, double circular combined as one off center. Kinda reminds me of a magnifying glass in a certain way.
July 5th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
Everybody’s rebranding their logo these days.
I think the simplification by getting rid of the stripes are okay. But I don’t get what they are trying to say by adding two more circle. And to top it off, it’s off center. It just doesn’t look good, and the gradient just makes it worse.
I wonder how awful it will be to picture it in a grayscale or b&w environment. Whoa!
And I’m not too keen on the typographic works either. The a’s and e’s looks rigid.
July 5th, 2006 at 10:41 pm
Photoshop Gradients for Dummies: $13.77
A ruler: $1.99
Understanding design restraint: priceless.
July 6th, 2006 at 2:01 am
Is it just me, or are we confusing something here? Seems to me that the “MasterCard Worldwide” logo is not a rebranding of MasterCard, but a new logo for MasterCard’s parent company, MasterCard Worldwide. Hence, somebody that works at MasterCard Worldwide’s corporate hq might have this logo on their biz card, but your credit card will retain the 1996-era MasterCard logo. Maybe I’m wrong but …
July 6th, 2006 at 3:38 am
ahah i think the same of Paul Joyce : )
July 6th, 2006 at 4:17 am
Hate it… Gradients? Come on guys!
July 6th, 2006 at 6:17 am
This is a have right? Or another case of somebody on the client side of things deciding it’s their way or no way?
July 6th, 2006 at 6:17 am
At the first sight, the magnifying glass-alike is awful. How can they put that? Gradient and blurry? Ouuch..
The one thing I like only the typo of Mastercard Worldwide.
July 6th, 2006 at 6:24 am
I love it! Well done mastercard! absolute class! Can’t wait to get my new credit card!
just kidding.
July 6th, 2006 at 6:42 am
Looks like a bit like a prophylactic, protection against internet fraudan underlying theme perhaps?
July 6th, 2006 at 6:42 am
The Mysterons have taken Mastercard over by the looks of it…
July 6th, 2006 at 7:03 am
Why is the condom in the middle not in the centre? It just looks wrong because of that…
July 6th, 2006 at 7:06 am
[…] >>mastercard Rebranding […]
July 6th, 2006 at 7:09 am
it looks like a Hula Hoop
July 6th, 2006 at 7:20 am
To much is going on. A huge change here… I think a lot of functionality has been lost.
July 6th, 2006 at 7:27 am
not brilliant but at least they have had a go unlike some old, dated brands out there
July 6th, 2006 at 7:36 am
Ugly!
The same sort of uglyness as the new dutch KPN logo.
They too had a good one before.
I like the mastercard 1979 version!
July 6th, 2006 at 7:49 am
Erm, did they just drop a condom onto their logo?
Hey perhaps the key decision maker there is afraid to go to the opticians? Perhaps he’d annoyed the branding agency so much they made this for a laugh?
I remember when Deutsche Bahn (german rail company) had the corners rounded on their logo, and they were charged 400,000 euros for that back in the mid-90s. This one probably cost a cool million! Money well spent, not!
July 6th, 2006 at 8:35 am
I not sure, i don’t like it as the second shape is thrown on and not considered enough!
July 6th, 2006 at 8:42 am
It looks like mud. There is no discerable context that the everyday person could pull from this. It’s overly complicated. It looks like a failed atempt to be trendy, Vissually it’s set up all wrong the proportions are waaaay off, and the color balance is waaay off.
a very very bad logo.
What value does this add to the brand? my guess is none.
July 6th, 2006 at 8:53 am
It looks like they are going into the buisness of profilactics
July 6th, 2006 at 9:08 am
wow talk about trend followers. first with that drop shadow in 1996 and now gradients.. i prefer the 1990 logo actually
July 6th, 2006 at 10:16 am
Why is it that when a logo gets redesigned now days it is the same logo but with a gradient and more curves? Sprite, UPS, and now MasterCard? I’m getting a little sick of it all, really. We should redesign for a purpose, and make it better not fruitier. If they wanted to include the idea of being international via the addition of a third circle - you would think they could have thought of something that represents the idea of the globalization of business better than something that looks like a Photoshop lenses flare.
July 6th, 2006 at 10:16 am
Something to keep in mind - this is not going to replace the icon that we’re all used to seeing on our credit cards and ATM machines - this is simly a redesign of the mega-conglomerate that oversees all their products and services. Yes, it is weird-looking, but it is intended to differentiate itself from its subsidiaries.
July 6th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Im not sure if i like it. its pretty bad i think… something about it looks childish!
July 6th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
The new Master Card World Wide logo looks much like a pimple that i recently popped.
July 6th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
MasterCard set-up a parent company and called it Master Card Worldwide. They knew it’d need an identity, so they decided to draw from the Master Card logo, which is already very well-known.
[Conjecture]
The problems started when someone said “I want that cool 3-d, computer-y look I’m seeing everywhere. How can we get that in there?” Things got worse when someone else decided the best way to symbolize the concept of a “parent” company was by putting a translucent ring slightly larger than and off-center from the existing Master Card rings.
What we end up with is a total clusterfuck. It doesn’t communicate anything, because it was dicked with by everyone on the committee–they all wanted it to say what they wanted it to say. They crammed a bunch of nonsensical stuff in that was intended to say something literal and wound up making an un-appetizing shit-soup.
[/Conjecture]
I’d like to see the rejected concepts
July 6th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
Does look like a condom, maybe they’re promoting safe-sex and giving a percentage to African dictator-countries, or would that be a form of money laundring…?
July 6th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
Its crap! Absolute rubbish, it looks like a bunch of people who didnt like each others idea, who was the lead on this? Crap. I dont want this shit on my credit card. I’m serious, I’ll get a fucking VISA card instead. I hate it, it makes me angry.
July 6th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
Am I the only one that thinks the 1979 version is the best one?
July 7th, 2006 at 3:33 am
As a graphic designer who has never had the chance to work on a multi million dollar account like mastercard - I’m always amused to see logo results like this.
The agency will probably charge a kings ransom for this - which is obviously 10 minutes work on a Friday afternoon before rushing off to the nearest wine bar to congratulate themselves on a job well done. This looks the sort of design I would present just to make up the numbers in my presentation.
July 7th, 2006 at 7:30 am
Oh My God! It looks so bad! Paul Joyce ist totally right! Understanding “design2 is priceless.
The new logo goes against all rules of a good logodesign. It´s incredibly bad. The Logo was fine, don´t you think?
To be true, I don´t believe that this is going to be the new logodesign. They can´t all be blind at Mastercard!
July 7th, 2006 at 8:21 am
when will they establish a “logo standard” and have “logo validation” sevices? this just sucks like the vacum cleaner. i looked at it black and white, and it looks like a big crescent followed by a bigger crescent then a dark circly thing. they could have just added a circle on top of the two or something (even though that might insult people with 3 balls) or make the circles flow into each other, shaped like two whistles put together if you know what i mean. anyways, i dont want to leave my trusty priceless mastercard cus with the new logo it will be worthless
July 7th, 2006 at 9:15 am
Well, It looks like I’m the only one that likes the new logo very much.
seems to be very trendy do bash any re-branding attempt around here.
July 7th, 2006 at 9:44 am
you don’t get it, you’re facing a penis wearing a condom.
July 7th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
Ugly, ugly, ugly. The logo is covered by that off-center web-button/condom. This is terrible, and I bet they paid through the nose for it.
July 7th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
this sucks shit
im about to burn all my mastercards
July 7th, 2006 at 10:21 pm
Kenney and the others are right. This is not the same MasterCard, credit card company. It’s ‘MasterCard WorldWide’, a branch of. The post is purposely leading when comparing logos.
Freddy, could you please clarify this in your post.
July 8th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Well…it’s realy ugly!
c’mon…that’s not a good symbol…(sorry…i don’t know the right words to talk about it in english…) the 3rd circle is not in the centre…and the…”fading colour”…ufff….who did it???
July 8th, 2006 at 10:37 am
The old logo meaned sharing, the new logo mean: we have something to hide, don’t look inside we’re blurry, not clear.
…
July 9th, 2006 at 3:25 am
It just looks unfinished.
July 9th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
[…] Check out Mastercards new identity, plus some of the logo history.read more | digg story […]
July 9th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
Logos are most often than not, just a log, and is not indicative of the entire rebranding excercise that they are trying to pull off. I think a major part of any rebranding, is as much the new logo as the application of the logo across the coporation.
From what I see from the website? Horrble application. Gradient-ee white on black and stuff all over? What are they thinking?
www.mastercard.com
July 9th, 2006 at 11:26 pm
why do so many logo rebrandings suck?
July 10th, 2006 at 5:05 am
Booo!
How on earth was this logo sold to the client?
To me the logo tells the story of two parties making a transaction that is done by a third party (mastercard worldwide). The 3rd party blurs everything it does in the process of dealing with the transaction of the other two. In the evolution chart at the top of this page it’s as if there used to be clarity at all times at the point where the two circles/parties met, but now there’s just obscure layers of blurriness. It’s a disgrace to graphic design, damn!
My favs would be 1979 and 1990.
July 10th, 2006 at 8:21 am
Worst.Logo.Ever.
Seriously, what the hell is that middle circle superimposed on top of everything supposed to represent??
July 10th, 2006 at 8:43 am
As most of you, i did really like the new look!! Other issue is logo size. When you use the new logo in small size, the new logo is going to be “very small” than the old logo. I just tried it in photoshop, placed couple of other logos with masterCard logo in 60 px height. see the difference. nnoussh.com/wordpress/images/masterCard.gif
July 10th, 2006 at 9:47 am
Guess no one thought “will this work in black & white?”
The ‘79 version has class…and smells of rich mahagony.
July 10th, 2006 at 10:52 am
Thanks you for the link…
July 10th, 2006 at 11:22 am
Well done guys! A spectacular c*ck up. Congratulations.
July 10th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
[…] with a new logo. It’s a bit rubbish really. ( Trackback URL for this post / RSS comment feed for this post) […]
July 12th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Hate that center circle; it’s way too distracting and sticks out like a sore thumb. And yes, it does look like a condom.
July 12th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
ugh- thats ass. I call that a “Go home and do it again”
July 12th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
In response to El Guapo, your not the only one. At first glance I thought is was a female contraceptive.
July 16th, 2006 at 3:35 am
I see one big thing wrong here. They are trying to create two brands “MasterCard” and “MasterCard Worldwide” that are not different enough in name.
Couldn’t they come up with a unique brand for their other services. Becuase they are keeping MasterCard name within the Worldwide brand there they are almost force to come up with a logo that must be somewhat simlar to the MasterCard logo but also different enough to stand out. I don’t think the average person who looks at the MasterCard Worldwide logo will say “Oh that must be their corporate logo that is a different brand from my card that I trust. They are going to look at it and say “why did they change the logo for? And then they will continue to see the iconic logo and wonder why MasterCard has two differnet logos going around.
Bad branding there.
August 9th, 2006 at 12:30 am
I’m a Freelance writer with a script for a master card add. Please feel free to email me if your interested
August 21st, 2006 at 3:59 am
thats an excellent condom ad!
September 7th, 2006 at 11:03 am
I can just imagine the “design by commitee” that created this monster. I don’t believe that any designer worth their salt would ever produce a logo that would never work as simple black and white (like on a fax, or embroidered on a golf shirt) without the evil influence of an over zealous client (or clients probably). It looks like another case of too many cooks in the kitchen. Also…what’s with the type? Not really finished in my opinion. It looks like they pulled it out of their ass and said…”I’m too tired to go on”.
brutal.
September 9th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Looks like crap, or maybe a comdom! Which one I don’t know.
September 12th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
Mastercad got fat?
Remeber guys, two brands, two logo, not just an awful spot over the original logo.
September 21st, 2006 at 8:44 am
I think Multi million $ company would not care about any of your ideas and thoughts and they do what they think is best. So, stop wasting your time.
October 14th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
Without getting into a long winded design discussion, this is crap. And it also looks like a cataract from someones eyeball.
Boo urns
December 4th, 2006 at 1:00 am
dogshit?
March 6th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Oh, great. I can’t wait to get this suck-job of a logo sent to me embedded as a jpg file in a word document so we can screen print this on a t-shirt. And then they’ll be to cheap to pay for more than one color and get mad when it sucks. Not to mention embroidering it on a cheap polo shirt or engraving it on a travel mug. GUESS WHO’S NEPHEW JUST GOT THEIR DESIGN DEGREE?
March 13th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
It’s yet another brand which has jumped on the gradient/transparency bandwagon.
The greatest logos are also the simplest, full stop.
This is overly fussy, and lacks the nice symmetry the old one has. Plus, I thought Mastercard were worldwide already - is there any need for that?
April 14th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Whats going on with the world these days??????????????????????
??????????????????????????????????????????????
GEEZ LEAVE MASTERCARD ALONE, MAYBE THEY ARE GOING THROUGH ROUGH TIMES, THEY ARE HAVING DIFFICULTIES TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THEIR SEXUALITY OR JUST HAD A FAULTY LOOSE WIRE IN THEIR MARKETING TEAM, HOPEFULLY THEYL GET OVER IT,
PROBABLY THEY BEEN HAVING TOO MUCH ECSTASY TABLETS AND COULDNT RECOVER ON TIME WHEN THEY HAD THE PRESENTATION,
JUST IMAGINE THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING, O YES THIS IS A VERY GOOD DESIGN, HA HA, COME ON MAN, WHATS GOING ON?
THE DESIGNER MUST BE SOME UGLY *SS WITCHCRAFT OR DID VOODOO LESSONS PRIOR TO THE GRAND PRESENTATION OF THE LOGO,
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, PRESENTING THE NEW LOGO,
INSTEAD OF SILENCE, AND MUMBLING, IT WAS PROBABLY LIKE ALL CHEERING AND LAUGHING AWAY, THINKING THEY GON TAKE OVER THE WORLD, YEA! WORLDWIDE Y’ALL!! TAKE THAT! YEAEEE YEAEE
WHATEVER HAPPENED. MUST HAVE HAPPENED. SOME MAGIC IN THE AIR. IF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE AGREED TO IT, THEN THESE THOUSAND OF PEOPLE HAS TO BE REMOVED FROM PLANET EARTH
September 21st, 2007 at 12:48 pm
A horrible logo that no-one related with credit card processing is going to use (thankfully). Even MasterCard acquirers are not touching it and sticking with the 1996-era one.
At least PayPal’s new logo was a decent attempt, even though they have made a huge mistake in the way it has been rolled out:
New PayPal Logo: A Case Study in Trust Issues
http://www.webmasterworld.com/ecommerce/3444431.htm
September 27th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Bad, Bad, Bad, Not only is it worse then the original branding of mastercard I think looking at it is actually giving me a headache.
November 1st, 2007 at 10:13 pm
The Mastercard press release: http://www.mastercardinternational.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.cgi?id=1282&
MasterCard Worldwide is *corporate* brand identity, not to be confused with the product “MasterCard”
“In addition to the MasterCard brand, which appears on MasterCard credit, debit and prepaid cards, other brands include Maestro®, the global PIN-debit brand, Cirrus®, the ATM brand, and MasterCard Advisors. These brands will not change, and MasterCard Worldwide will continue to support them as part of its strong brand family.”
November 7th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
If it is supposed to look like a retina, then I give it a thumbs up.
November 8th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
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