SandiskCopied

Western Digital bought SanDisk in 2016. By late 2024 it was preparing to spin the flash memory business off as a separate company in 2025, having originally planned the split for 2024. Ahead of that, the company announced a new identity in December 2024, The Verge reported.

The most visible change is the name's styling. SanDisk had used an inter-capped wordmark, with a capital D, since 1995. The new logo is set in all capitals as SANDISK, while the name in text becomes simply Sandisk. The company said its slab serif was 'back and bolder'. It kept the open D from the old mark but paired it with a new 'pixel-driven' S, inspired by a single point of data, or a pixel. Sandisk said the letters together symbolise the collaboration and partnership needed to achieve its purpose and open new possibilities. A launch video presented the identity, and the company published its own account of the thinking behind the design.

The Verge noted the context: a year earlier, Western Digital had been embroiled in controversy over SanDisk Extreme portable SSDs that reportedly wiped owners' data, including one belonging to a Verge producer, and the company had declined to explain what happened. A new brand on the eve of independence was also a chance to move on.

The Verge's verdict was positive: it said its staff were big fans of 'unfinished' logo styles, and that Sandisk had done all right, certainly better than some other recent rebrands it listed.

The Verge welcomed the result, saying it was a big fan of unfinished logo styles and that Sandisk did alright, and could certainly have done worse, pointing to PayPal, Kia, Paramount and Jaguar. Placing it in that company is fair: the pixel S is a confident idea that keeps the slab serif heritage, and it has more character than several rebrands of the same period.

That is fair. The pixel S is a sensible, literal idea for a storage company, and the slab keeps a thread to the old mark. Dropping the inter-cap is overdue; it was a 1990s tic. But all-caps techno-serifs are common in hardware, and the logo will need the product to restore trust that design cannot.