DurexCopied

Durex did not announce this one. German design blog Design Tagebuch reported that the condom brand, founded in Britain in 1929 and owned by Reckitt since 2010, had redesigned its packaging and logo, only about three years after its last brand update in early 2020. Unlike that earlier project, the new change had not been discussed by the company or, so far, by other media.

Taiwanese design site Brandinlabs traced the rollout. The change appeared first in the UK, probably around March 2022, and then in markets across Europe, the US, Australia and Hong Kong. Durex's Facebook avatar was updated in May 2023.

The two sources agree on the details. The oval frame that surrounded the wordmark for more than 30 years has gone, leaving only the letters. The final X has also changed: the stroke that used to extend down to the right is now the one that reaches up to the right. Design Tagebuch added that the packaging was redesigned fairly extensively, with a partly new colour scheme and illustration combined with photography.

Reckitt's 2022 annual report, the blog said, aimed to position Durex more as a lifestyle brand standing for diversity, identity and people's freedom to live their true sexuality, with the X as a central element meant to symbolise boundless freedom.

Brand News in Italy carried the company's own reasoning. The X was given more visibility to signal the intersection of affection and sexuality in people's lives, and the old logo was opened up, breaking out of its boundaries into two infinite lines meant as a sign of openness to new experiences and freedom of expression. Packs got new colours and larger icons showing thickness and fit. The marketing manager spoke of a single community regardless of gender or sexual orientation. An X that breaks its frame is a neat idea, though symbolism this explicit rarely needs a press note to explain it.

Removing the pill-shaped frame is overdue. It was a decades-old device that made the logo look like a pharmacy product. Without it, the name has to carry itself, and the redrawn X now points upward, which, given the product, is not a subtle choice. Whether quietly redoing a rebrand so soon reflects confidence or second thoughts is another question, and Durex, tellingly, has not offered an answer.