MovistarCopied

Movistar is Telefónica's commercial brand in Spain and Spanish-speaking Latin America. Telefónica wanted it adapted to digital environments and to the scale of the big global, iconic brands, and to signal the company's new business challenges and positioning.

The job went to Lambie-Nairn, the WPP consultancy that had been Telefónica's global brand guardian since 2009 and works across its brands, including Vivo in Brazil and O2 in the UK and Germany. After a creative brief written with Telefónica's global brand team, stakeholder interviews and market research, the decision was to evolve rather than replace: simplify the identity, raise its emotional impact and make it more flexible without losing coherence.

Tim Simmons, managing creative director of Lambie-Nairn's Madrid office, said the team redrew the M as a flat symbol and generated a whole simplified visual language from its curves, which ensured consistency and ease of use. He called the style unique to Movistar's iconic M, and the new palette a refreshing change expressing more emotion and modernity, shining in digital with rejuvenated energy and attitude. The consultancy described the brand as more alive, modern and flexible.

The identity launched first in Spain, Colombia, Argentina and Central America, with the remaining Movistar countries to follow in the first half of 2017. It was a gradual change, starting in digital channels and advertising.

IPMark reported the company's aim to fit digital environments and sit alongside the big global icons. The agency's creative director in Madrid explained that the M was redrawn as a flat symbol, and its curves became the source of a simplified visual language meant to guarantee consistency and ease of use, with a refreshed palette intended to bring more emotion and modernity. The launch began in Spain, Colombia, Argentina and Central America, rolling out first through digital channels and advertising. A flatter M is the predictable answer; deriving a whole system from its curves is the smarter part.

This is flat design done sensibly. The old shaded M was a creature of the early-2000s gloss era and the new one reads cleanly on a phone screen. Building a graphic language from the curves is a smart way to give a single letter more work. But the result feels generic, as if every telecom brand was redrawn by the same hand.