# AT&T new logo (2016)

> AT&T launched a new logo in Mar 2016, designed by Interbrand. New logo and identity.

## Key facts

- Brand: AT&T
- Launched: Mar 2016
- Studio: Interbrand
- What changed: New logo and identity.
- Why: AT&T updated its identity because, its brand chief said, the old one was no longer up to the task after expanding into Mexico, buying DirecTV and going digital-first.
- Industry: Telecom
- Logos: https://rebrandlog.com/logos/atandt-2016/before.png (before), https://rebrandlog.com/logos/atandt-2016/after.svg (after)

## The rebrand, explained

The globe has been the core of the AT&T brand since 1983, when it replaced the last bell-based mark. Communicate magazine noted that both the bell before it and the original globe were the work of Saul Bass, and that the globe reached up to 93 per cent brand awareness in the United States. By 2016 the company had expanded into Mexico, bought DirecTV and committed to a digital-first strategy, and its vice president of brand and design said the existing identity was no longer up to the task.

Interbrand, which had handled the 2005 rebrand, returned as creative partner. The brief centred on mobile and digital use and on modernity: signal a transformation while keeping one of America's most recognisable symbols recognisable.

The 2016 globe has smoother, more regular curves and an axis shifted slightly upright. It is rendered in a single blue on white, which Communicate described as a return to Bass's original rather than the previous two versions, which enclosed the white space and used a gradient. AT&T also cut its key brand assets from three to one, leading with the globe alone and dropping the wordmark from most uses, though it can still appear in lock-ups. Omnes, the typeface from 2005, stayed, alongside the colour and an updated audio signature.

Communicate also gave the scale: more than 280,000 employees, and a consultancy that had worked with AT&T for 19 years. The result was a system of four signature elements, globe, sound, colour and type, flexible enough to dress a consumer entertainment unit differently from a business one.

The rollout was planned over about three years with no single launch day. It reached new technician uniforms, researched for more than a year, and branded designs for 35 types of vehicle, with retail signage and wayfinding to follow.

Transform magazine's peer panel was approving, praising the simplicity and consistency of the flat design, its ease of reproduction across platforms and mobile, and the confidence, after 33 years, to let the globe stand alone without the name, as Apple and Nike do.

This is restoration done well. The gradient versions belonged to their moment, and stripping it back to flat stripes did not so much modernise Bass's idea as rediscover it. Running the globe without a name is earned confidence: few marks in telecoms could carry it.

In short: A clean, careful redraw that let the globe stand alone.

## Sources

- https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_and_identity_for_att_by_interbrand.php
- https://gdusa.com/att-and-interbrand-redraw-the-globe/
- https://www.communicatemagazine.com/features/2016-may/ringing-a-bell

## Cite this

Rebrand Log, "AT&T new logo (2016)", https://rebrandlog.com/rebrand/atandt-2016/, last updated 2026-10-20.