US: xerox New Logo

Xerox announced today they’re junking their 40 year old logo for a new “modern” logo, complete with bouncing ball icon.

Xerox unveiled what it says is the most sweeping transformation of its corporate identity since it dropped “Haloid” from the Haloid Xerox name in 1961. In a broadcast to employees, it announced that it would retire the staid red capital X that has dominated its logo for 40 years in favor of what Richard Wergan, vice president of advertising, calls “a brand identity that reflects the Xerox of today.”

The new logo consists of a bright red lowercase “xerox” that sits alongside a red sphere sketched with lines that link to form a stylized X. According to Anne M. Mulcahy, Xerox’s chief, that little piece of art represents the connection to customers, partners, industry and innovation.

Xerox and Interbrand, a brand consultancy that is a unit of Omnicom Group, spent more than 18 months interviewing some 5,000 people across the globe about their associations with the Xerox name. Then they set about figuring how they could best retain the nice things it stands for (dependability and stability), jettison the not-so-nice (formal, somewhat stodgy) — and, most importantly, add in such attributes as modern, innovative and flexible.

The new branding will go live on the Xerox Web site today but Xerox said it expected that it would take as long as two years to finish converting all of its packaging, marketing materials, office stationary and signs to the new look.