BrexCopied

Brex launched in 2018 with a single goal, to be the first corporate card for startups, and its original branding said exactly that and little else. The company's announcement, Rebranding Brex, admitted as much: extremely clear messaging translated quite literally into the brand, and billboards across San Francisco and New York made the name known. But it said it had become much more than a corporate card, serving many more businesses than startups, and the previous brand was too limiting.

The new logo is a flag. Brex's post traced the idea to the moon landing, when Neil Armstrong's first act was to plant a flag, and described a flag as the representation of an ideal, a dream bigger than any individual. It said the flag represents the entrepreneurial spirit, the courage to reinvent yourself, and the winds of change that let customers do things differently. The new website, dashboard and mobile app launched the same day, with new cards to follow.

Transform magazine's Elettra Scrivo, covering the work on 3 November 2020, set out the system around it. Brex wanted its new brand expression to highlight offerings beyond card services and help all growing businesses realise their potential, turning its existing mission of dreaming big into a design concept. The flag logomark is the pillar of the system, alluding to a rippling flag. Its graphic shape runs through compositions and illustrations as a storytelling tool, with shapes and negative space suggesting upward momentum, and Brex's signature orange remains the hero colour, pushing communications beyond the financial category's standard white and blue.

The strategic diagnosis is right: a brand that literally said startup card could not follow the company upmarket. The flag is a reasonable answer and the orange is a genuine asset in a sea of blue banks. But the moon landing origin story is a heavy load for a corporate card, and planting a flag is an awkward metaphor for a fintech courting established businesses. The symbol also leans on its explanation; seen cold, a rippling orange shape reads as abstract motion before it reads as a flag. It works best as a system, which is where the shape earns its keep.