WeTransferCopied

WeTransfer launched in 2009 as a way to send digital files through the cloud, with ease of use and aesthetic appeal that its design chief counted among the keys to its success. In November 2016 it unveiled its first rebrand: a new logo, colour palette, typeface and website.

The headline change was subtraction. The old logo was a blue lowercase We with a dramatically curving e, followed by transfer in grey. The new one keeps only the We. Thijs Remie, vice president of design, said the decision reflected how the company's definition of we had shifted, towards you and us together. The design began in-house and was finished with type designer Paul van der Laan of Bold Monday on the finer details. The We became thicker, with a higher smile on the e.

Remie was clear about the stakes of a two-letter logo. When focusing on just two characters, he said, good is no longer good enough; it needs to be perfect down to the tiniest detail. The brief was a symbol with the right personality, technically well executed, that reads clearly as we. Alongside it, the website gained clearer navigation, a bigger transfer box and the ability to download single files.

Dezeen placed it in the year's wider trend for scrapping complicated logos for simpler ones, alongside the Premier League's lion and Pentagram's Mastercard.

In the blog post Dezeen quoted, Remie said WeTransfer had never been about making something just decent; the company wanted things to be great. Dezeen also noted that the updated site had launched the week before and that dropping Transfer reflected the company's sense of community. Saying it wants great rather than decent is a high bar to set in public, and the finished two letters mostly earn it.

The bet was sound. The service is so tied to its task that the second half of the name hardly needs spelling out. The heavier We is friendlier and more confident than the old lockup, and bringing in a specialist type designer for two letters is exactly the kind of obsessiveness a logo this small demands. It is also a rare case of a brand trusting its users enough to say less.