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General Motors changed its corporate logo in January 2021 to launch a marketing strategy built around its turn to all-electric vehicles. Reuters noted it was only the fifth major redesign since the company was founded in 1908.

The old mark was a white GM, underlined, inside a darker blue block. The new one goes lowercase, keeps an underline only beneath the m, and moves the letters into a rounded square outline in blue. GM tied the mark to its Ultium EV platform and a new campaign that began its tagline with ev in blue. The work was done in-house.

Chief marketing officer Deborah Wahl explained the details at the CES launch: the blue gradient evokes the clear skies of a zero-emissions future, the underline nods to the Ultium battery platform, and the negative space around the m is meant to read as a plug. Lowercase, she said, signals inclusivity, approachability and a more human company. The identity was led in-house and arrived with the Everybody In campaign and a pledge of 30 electric models by 2025.

GM's Wahl framed it as a pivot moment, saying she believed the industry was at an inflection point for EVs and that GM wanted to spark mass adoption. Coverage pointed out a mismatch: the first Ultium vehicles, a GMC Hummer EV at $112,600 and the Cadillac Lyriq, were not exactly accessible to everyone.

Social media was merciless. The Detroit Free Press collected comments comparing it to 2000s Microsoft Word art and a fifth-grader's winning entry, and others likened it to an Adobe app or Goodwill's logo. Wahl was unfazed: change always takes a minute, she said, and employees liked it.

The Verge was unimpressed by the gesture and blunt about the context. Its subhead joked that nothing says zero emissions like soft blue lowercase letters. The day of the launch, Tesla's stock value passed the combined worth of GM and Ford for the first time, and GM had just raised its electric and autonomous spending to $27 billion through 2025. Chief marketing officer Deborah Wahl called it only the fifth logo change in 113 years and probably the most progressive move since 1964. The Verge noted a catch: the corporate mark would not appear on the new EVs themselves, so the Malcolm Gladwell-fronted campaign was selling a commitment rather than a car.

GM was one of many big companies changing logos at the time, and the lowercase, soft-cornered look is the house style of that wave. The rest says friendly tech company, which is exactly what a 113-year-old carmaker wanted to say, even if it looks like a lot of other companies doing the same.