Good article, but I don’t completely agree — especially with what Instagram has done and having to shift to a new logo (not to beat that dead horse anylonger). In my opinion, if they would of done it right from the start, they wouldn’t of needed to change so early on and received flack for the horrible redesign.

Instagram created their past logo in a Skeuomorphism design style — it was trendy at the time and so they were doomed from the start. Now they’re following an icon like style that completely is dependent on the color to be recognized..again, trendy. (Lets face it, if you look up camera icon, you will get hundreds of other icons that could also pass if you drop them into an app bubble). It vaguely (if at all) resembled the old logo, and lets face it…they will NEVER require the logo to show up in Black & White…last I checked, the purpose for this as a final stage logo was for fax machines, not the internet. (note: we always present first round logos in B&W so they are not, in any way, dependent on color, so they can stand on their own and be recognizable).

The Mastercard redesign wasn’t a drastic change per say. At first glance, you recognize it‘s mastercard, and move on…no frustration, no hesitation. Same when Apple made their rebrand, and Google. You knew without a doubt who it was, and moved on.

If a company rebrands to keep up to trendy designs and fashions, it will never have a visually strong brand. Coca-cola, IBM, VW, BMW all have strong, recognizable global presence without the need to keep up with trends. Even Apple has merely changed color, not shape.

If you do it right from the start, it will last as long as your company will.