Through the Interface

I'm sure many of you will already have seen Autodesk's exciting new brand identity. To get a sense of what's behind it, I recommend heading over to our Brand Hub, where you can get much of the background. It's a very interesting read.

Employees and partners have had some time to digest this change – and presumably start stocking up on black printer ink 😉 – and I fully admit that it took me a little while to "get" it. If you find it a bit too different, I do recommend giving it a few days/weeks to settle in.

This isn't the first time I've lived through a brand change, of course: when I joined the company there were calipers in the logo! As time passes you get the sense that the logos have been changing more frequently, but it's actually far from being the case. According to 1000logos.net, Autodesk has changed its logo on average every 8 years:

1. 1982 to 1994 (12 years)
2. 1994 to 2000 (6 years)
3. 2000 to 2005 (5 years)
4. 2005 to 2013 (8 years)
5. 2013 to 2021 (8 years)

It's worth noting that the first two logos – both with calipers – were visually quite similar. Here are logos 1, 3, 4 and 5:

I like the thinking behind the new brand: as a company we want to move beyond our product-centric origins to be known for our platform(s). I also like the idea of having a simpler, largely monochrome brand identity that draws more attention to the work being done by our customers. All good stuff. On a related note, I also like the way the 3D bracket-like metallic (or transparent!) "A" resolves into the 2D logo. It's rather neat.

A parting thought… a few months ago I was really surprised to see Microsoft's Azure division adopt a logo that was visually very similar to Autodesk's. At the time I wondered why more of a fuss wasn't made (or any at all, for that matter), but I suppose we were already well on our way to moving on, by that point. I wonder if there's any kind of market for recycling logos?