BMWCopied

BMW introduced its new brand design on 3 March 2020, aimed at digital channels. The important caveat, stated in BMW's own release, is that this is a communication logo. It was used across advertising, web and social alongside the existing badge, not on vehicles or in interior labelling.

Jens Thiemer, BMW's senior vice president for customer and brand, said BMW was becoming a relationship brand and presented the transparent ring as a sign of openness and clarity, an invitation into the BMW world, and framed the flat mark as built for flexible digital communication.

The changes are reductive. The shaded, 3D-effect roundel introduced in 1997 becomes completely flat. The blue and white quarters, which reference the state colours of Bavaria, stay. The black ring that had enclosed the mark since it was first registered in 1917 becomes transparent, so the background shows through and the logo takes on whatever sits behind it. The BMW lettering is redrawn in a new logotype, and the same treatment applies to the BMW i and BMW M marks. Dezeen pointed out BMW framed the flatness as a nod to its own past, since no version had shading before 1997, and placed it within the wider flattening of car badges, including Volkswagen's a few months earlier.

The reaction was harsh. The Verge's headline called the flat logo everything that is wrong with modern logo design, arguing the see-through ring lost legibility and distinctiveness, especially on light backgrounds. Within days Design Week was reporting BMW speaking out about a misinterpretation of the change, repeating that cars and dealerships would keep the existing badge.

The flat roundel never reached the cars. A BMW spokesman told Motoring Research that it would not be deployed physically on vehicles, where the existing badge stayed; the new version was a media mark for communications, used alongside the classic one. Senior vice president Jens Thiemer said visual restraint and graphic flexibility would equip the brand for the variety of touchpoints where it appeared. The switch across online and offline communications, trade fairs, motor shows and events was scheduled to run until the end of May 2021. The outlet noted that Volkswagen and Mini had already gone flat in 2019 and 2018.

The transparent ring is the one genuinely new idea, and a clever one on screen, where it lets the mark sit on photography without a heavy black outline. On a white background it can look unfinished. Keeping it off the cars was the sensible call.