Acer Unveils Their New Logo, Hopes Someone Cares

Acer is in a quest to be whole lot more like Apple. If you thought that this is an exercise in futility – you’d be right. Thats like KIA trying to transform itself into becoming Maserati. There is just one Maserati and there is and can only be one Apple (thankfully).

But over at Acer HQ somewhere in Taiwan – JT Wang, Acer chairman who is now running the world’s second biggest PC company after its board ousted Gianfranco Lanci, has taken his first step in transforming the company – visually at least.

Less than a week after the boardroom shakeup, Acer has a new image – literally. The company on Monday unveiled a new logo, replacing the previous version that had been in use for the past decade.
It’s out with the old and in with the new – the Taiwanese company is now slapping a fresh coat of paint and a softer typeface upon its corporate identity. Acers’ old identity laid emphasis on the ‘e’ suggesting the motion the ‘e’ generation was undergoing at turn of the century. While it may have had an objective it certainly looked odd. The basics seem to be in place to attract a younger audience – lowercase sans-serif typography that has been italicized so as to not alienate existing owners. The new Acer green is lighter and brighter and the more rounded new shape looks a lot safer for kids to play around with, should the occasion ever arise.

The change lacks confidence – its a little too close to the older identity and if Acer intended to break away from the past and move in another direction altogether they should have made a much bolder statement.

I doubt this will make a big difference in the company’s push to be “more like Apple,” but hey, at least we now have a visual marker to distinguish the products that came before this shift in strategy from those that come after.

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Chaitanya is brand consultant with Saffron Consultants. His interests lie in graphic design and thinking brand. You can follow Chaitanya at behance.net/chair or chaitanyarele.blogspot.com.