Bloomberg Opinion's Ben Schott identifies five comprehensible core reasons, why it can make sense to discard a logo's depth and detail and «debrand» it:
Why companies currently are «debranding» their logo designs
We all know: a logo is meant to be unique and distinctive. So why the hell are so many companies “debranding” their logo design then? If you like it or not, there are some good reasons for that.
1 – Mobile First sesign
The need to shrink a logo into a tiny digital box.
2 – Decluttered Design
Turning away from the past years visual excess in logo design that was mainly driven by the ever-increasing abilities of design software.
3 – Brand Maturity
The urge to re-align the visual appearance with the brands personality that has grown into a more mature, hence less playful and more sophisticated state.
4 – Following Design Trends
In certain industries, like the fashion industry, it has become very much en vogue to sport a highly debranded logo.
5 – Design Adaptability
A debranded logos open up the opportunity to create content specific adaption of the logo and create a systemic use of different logo variants.
Given this 5 reasons, it's quite likely that the trend to rebrand logos is here to stay quite a while.
But is it the only approach to successfully tackle the aspects outlined above?
I don't know. Time will tell.
Watch Ben Schott's full video here on YouTube.