Why is OpenAI’s potential new logo making its staff so upset?

OpenAI, the parent company behind ChatGPT is getting a new look, but its employees aren’t happy about it. During a companywide meeting, the new logo concept, which has been about a year in the making, was revealed to be as a simple black "O" resembling a ring or zero.

This was met with lukewarm enthusiasm given the drastic design contrast with the current hexagonal flower symbol. According to an article on Fortune, the new design struck some employees as “ominous and lacking creativity”. Some also voiced their dislike for it openly. Fortune also said that in a detailed brand book from September 2022, OpenAI called its logo its “ most recognisable brand element”.

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In a conversation with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, Graham Hitchmough, senior consultant at The Bonsey Design Partnership said while the change in logo is yet to be seen by members of the public and the backlash remains hearsay, it is important to remember that the tech world changes of brand identity tend to be more frequent than in traditional industries.

In fact, Apple has also tweaked its iconic logo several times over the years, while Google and Facebook went beyond just rebranding to create new parent companies, Alphabet and Meta, to rule their platforms.

“Digital assets are easier (and cheaper) to update, and tech companies tend pivot more often, needing to project their evolving offer to the world,” he said. Yet such changes tend to spark more “handwringing and teeth-gnashing”, because consumer tech brands by definition have massive, engaged, opinionated and connected audiences, Hitchmough explained

Recalling the uproar and “general derision” of Twitter’s rebranding to X, he highlighted that a fair critique of any new brand identity can only happen once we fully understand the strategic and business intent behind it. Moreover, he added that sometimes when a company is “big enough, bold enough and bloody-minded enough to believe that what they’re doing is right, no amount of principled design-led or strategic arguments will be able to convince them otherwise”.

Ambrish Chaudhry, head of strategy at Design Bridge Partners highlighted that the supposed backlash underlines how important and meaningful brand identities are to businesses and employees, and that there could be many reasons why the Open AI staff have likely reacted to the logo change in a negative manner:

Timing

Timing is a key factor is to understand how ready the business is for a change of identity, and the message it wants to send through a rebrand. “In Open Ai’s case, some of the staff may respond negatively to the message that rebranding sends about the state of the company, underlining an imminent shift that will likely see its nonprofit board (set up as a checks-and-balances system) have no control over a for-profit OpenAI enterprise,” he said.

Process

A critical aspect of any rebrand is to make employees feel a part of the process.

“Sometimes negative reactions can come about by a feeling of not having been heard through the process,” explained Chaudhry.

Of course, with a company as big as Open Ai this might be hard but it is still crucial to create means for employees to have a say, in a facilitated manner, during any such process.

The identity

“Given that pictures aren’t out and most describe the logo as a minimalist O symbol, you could even argue that it is in line with the current technology and (for some reason) luxury branding aesthetic,” said Chaudhry.

However, what is important to remember about technology brands such as the FANGs are no longer the paragons of progress they used to be, he added. “They are increasingly being spoken about in less than glowing terms,” he shared.

Chaudhry added that with the flat design aesthetic these companies are being “recessive”, underlining their roles as platforms and conduits and less responsible for the impact on the world.

“Open AI doesn’t not have this luxury. As one of the most influential businesses of its time, one that will have a significant impact on the shape the World takes, it needs to have a point of view. A vision of the World it wants to create and that vision needs to come through in its brand. For all our sakes, it’s hopefully not a black void in a circle,” he said.

Last but not least, Chaudhry said this is a simple reminder that a successful corporate rebrand exercise is no accident and many considerations need to go in to make an identity that resonates internally and externally.

“As one CEO I worked with put it, ‘A new logo should be a banner we can all fight under’. And when that banner is for Open AI, leaders of the charge into a brave but also scary new world, a few in-house designers working on a logo in o small part of the office is not going to cut it,” he said.

What's the Internet up to?

Meanwhile the internet has also gone crazy with creativity on what the new look could be.

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