WhatsAppCopied

WhatsApp has never wanted to look like a social network. When Meta, which acquired it in 2014, turned its attention to the brand in early 2023, the brief was to set it apart as a secure, intimate utility for messaging, one built around privacy and trust rather than feeds and followers. The design team summarised the spirit as Forward. Together.

Crucially, the logo, the green phone in a speech bubble, did not change. The work went into the system around it. The system uses a product-led palette that starts from the in-app experience, from the familiar WhatsApp green to dark-mode variations, so marketing finally looks like the app people actually use. Graphic modules that hold messages and content, inspired by the back-and-forth of a conversation, act as building blocks for storytelling. Its designers say the approach was grounded in universal accessibility, designed to work across age, location, bandwidth and literacy.

Creative Review and The Drum both credit the studio Koto, working with Meta's CX, marketing and product design teams. It launched in February 2023 with billboards styled as message threads, The Drum reported, using the layouts to teach features such as voice notes and dark mode. Creative Review placed it in a gloomy moment for tech, months after Meta cut 11,000 jobs.

The system later reached the app itself. Meta's design team described a product refresh with a single consistent green palette, chosen after more than 35 colour iterations, a darker dark mode, more neutral colour so the green could be used selectively, and rounded outlined icons. The stated care was for muscle memory: more than two billion people use the app, so change was rationed.

9to5Mac reported the interface rollout in May 2024, after a long spell with beta testers. Green became the accent colour for badges and buttons, and the change looked more radical on Android, where the tab bar moved to the bottom of the screen and made the app resemble its iPhone version. Icons and illustrations turned rounder, with new animations and chat wallpapers. For an app used by billions, the brand lives mostly in those small interface moments, and bringing the two platforms closer together arguably does more for recognition than any logo tweak could.

It is a quiet, sensible piece of work, and quiet is the right register for a messaging app meant to work for everyone. Creative Review framed it against Meta's more controversial branding moves, and by comparison this one causes no friction at all. The trade-off is that it is hard to point at anything memorable beyond the green.