Itaú UnibancoCopied

Itaú Unibanco changed its brand on 6 December 2023 to open the celebrations of its 100th anniversary in 2024, a date counted from the founding of Unibanco in 1924. Estadão reported that the bank kept the basic concept but updated the shape of the famous logo it had used since 1973, its first big change of format, and adopted the slogan Feito de futuro, made of future.

The symbol gained rounder contours while still referring to the origin of the name: in Tupi-Guarani, Itaú means black stone. Orange, already associated with the bank, becomes the lead colour, while blue remains for the Uniclass and Personnalité segments and darker blues for Itaú BBA and Private.

Clube de Criação reported that the new visual identity system took 22 months of work, more than 70 colour studies and around 100 typographic studies, and was signed by Itaú's internal branding team with an outside design partner. Meio & Mensagem said the positioning was developed with the agencies Africa Creative and Galeria. Marketing director Eduardo Tracanella told both outlets that the bank had pursued an intense transformation agenda, and it was time for the brand to reflect it.

The design partner's own account explains the shape. The rounded square had become ubiquitous as the container for every app icon on every phone, so the designers pushed beyond it, increasing the corner radius and rounding the sides into a form inspired by river stones smoothed by time, which Itaú calls the pedra.

The bank's own campaign page, built around the line feito de futuro, spells out the details. The mark gained rounded corners, the i became lowercase, the u got a new accent, and the bank's proprietary typeface now appears in the logo itself, with a palette inspired by a Brazil of many colours. The page also warns that the change will take time and that older versions will linger during the transition, under a heading reminding customers that their security has not changed. Even a centenary rebrand has to reassure people the logo on their bank app is real.

That reasoning is excellent and rarely articulated. Itaú's square predated the smartphone, then got swallowed by it, its distinctiveness erased by Apple's icon grid. Turning the square into a pebble restores ownership while staying recognisably the same logo. Leading with orange is the other smart move: it was always the most memorable thing about the brand.