Santander Logo Design

Your logo is a crucial part of your brand identity and it’s vital that it reflects who you are and how you want to be seen in the best possible light.

Allowing you to achieve instant consumer recognition, your logo is the face of your company and is often, the first impression your customers will get of your business.

However, sometimes event the strongest brands need a make over in response to changing business demands.

Over the years, Santander has become renowned for its iconic flame logo that uses the discovery of fire to evoke a symbol of progress. And, although Santander felt that their brand identity was one of their biggest strengths, they also felt like it was time for a makeover!

Their current logo hasn’t changed since 2004, and although it has served them well, Santander felt like the logo didn’t reflect how they wanted to be seen in the digital world, especially as more customers now do their banking online, rather than in branch.

After all, as technology continues to advance at an unprecedented rate, more people than ever before are communicating, shopping and banking online. With this in mind, it’s crucial that businesses of all shapes and sizes remain in tune with digital trends.

Santander is a brand that recognises this and is concentrating all if its efforts on becoming the number one digital platform for financial services in 2018, by targeting 30 million digital customers.

And in order to accelerate their digital transformation, Santander decided that it was the perfect time to create a brand new look to mark the next stage of their business journey, after identifying that the brand needed ‘evolution, not revolution.’

However, it was important to Santander that they didn’t lose their brand identity altogether, especially as so many customers, in all corners of the globe, had become familiar with their existing logo. Instead, the main purpose of the re-design project was to look at the brand and determine how it could be adapted to reflect Santander’s changing business model and new online direction.

Santander wanted to retain the brand’s iconic heritage and core symbols however, the brand also wanted to adapt it so that it worked well across all digital platforms. With this in mind, their logo was simplified and streamlined, and brought up to date.

For example, they kept the red and increased the use of their white backgrounds in order to stand out online.

In a statement on LinkedIn, a representative from Santander said: “We’re continually developing the way we communicate to be more relevant to customers while remaining firm in our commitment to providing customers with an experience that is simple, personal and fair. I’m looking forward to the next chapter of Santander’s story with a brand that can grow with our customer’s changing lifestyles, and really shine on digital channels.

“The work on the new brand has been a collaboration between in-house teams and leading global brand consultancy Interbrand, with a project which stretched across the Group and around the world. It’s been a truly global journey and I’m really pleased with the way it’s turned out, but I’d like to hear what you think of the new look too!”

But why do businesses change their logo?

Santander is not the first established brand to change their logo, and they certainly won’t be the last.

There are thousands of brands, in all corners of the world that reach a natural stage in their business journey when it’s time to update and refresh their existing branding.

Here’s some of the main reasons why many businesses choose to update their brand.

Out-dated logo

 The world of business is constantly evolving and changing, and although you might be happy with your logo when it was designed, logos can quickly become out-dated or out of touch.

This is why it’s important that all businesses recognise the importance of giving their logo a facelift when the time is right!

Improved recognition

As your business changes, it’s highly likely that you will outgrow your logo, especially if your business grows in a different direction in response to changing customer demands.

With this in mind, you should ask yourself does your logo reflect who you are? Does it reflect your current customer focus? And most importantly, is it memorable?

If the answer is no to one or all of these questions, it’s time to update your logo!