Recently, BMW officially released the BMW i4 concept car that was originally planned to be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show. This is a four-door pure electric coupe with a maximum power of 530 horsepower and can accelerate from 100 kilometers to 100 kilometers in just 4 seconds. . In addition to its powerful performance, its design is also quite eye-catching. You can feel its avant-garde feel from the picture, especially the exaggerated "double kidney" grille. Many people think it is too domineering. BMW announced that the car will be put into production next year. Produce.

What we are going to talk about today is the "little easter egg" found on the BMW i4 concept car - a new style LOGO hanging on it. This means that BMW will launch a new brand LOGO, and the BMW i4 is the first product to display the new LOGO.

Although it is a new LOGO, the changes between the old and new car logos are actually very simple. The main thing is to remove the black outer ring. Do you think it looks good?

BMW has been waiting for 23 years for this logo change

Among these car brands with a history of more than a century, it is not common to change the LOGO. In fact, you can see it now Most car brand logos are designs from the last century. For example, since the BMW LOGO was launched in 1917, BMW has experienced six logo changes in a row. The LOGO currently hanging by BMW is still the 1997 version. It took 23 years for the fifth to sixth generation, but this time has not changed. Not too long, after all, it took 34 years from the fourth generation to the fifth generation.

BMW LOGO History

Just looking at the fifth-generation LOGO hanging on current BMW models, do you feel that it is outdated? Maybe this perception is not strong, but if you look at the six logo changes in BMW's history, you will find that the new LOGO is indeed the "freshest". BMW hopes to give the new LOGO a stronger sense of the future.

Jens Timmer, Senior Vice President of BMW Customer and Brand, said: “Removing the black ring around the shield expresses the BMW brand’s more open and transparent attitude towards young car buyers, and better Embrace the digital transformation. ”

The important significance of changing the logo is to increase recognition

No matter what the car company’s expectations are for the new car logo, the essential role of the car logo is to enhance people’s recognition of the brand. It has nothing to do with brand awareness. BMW is not the first brand to change its logo due to the trend of electrification. At least Volkswagen has taught us a lesson when it launched a new logo last year, which can be called a model.

As a small icon, the car logo is the core visual asset of the brand. It can be the simplest, but it must be the most important. Regardless of BMW or Volkswagen, we can find that the design direction of the new car logo is flat. Flat means simplifying the complex, less? is more.

Do you still remember that the BMW executive mentioned earlier that the new car logo is to embrace digitalization? I think we can learn from Volkswagen’s concrete expression of what it means to embrace digitalization. You can look at the Volkswagen logo in the picture below. You can find that the new logo has high definition and recognition even on a small-size digital screen. BMW’s new car logo must also have such an effect.

Although everyone laughs at the fact that these flat-style car logos have changed from three-dimensional to two-dimensional, and the three-dimensional effect is not so strong, from the perspective of communication, the new car logo is undoubtedly progress. One more thing, the first domestic car of the Volkswagen brand to display the new car logo should be SAIC Volkswagen's Viloran.

Changes in car logos of other brands

As a technological pacesetter in the automotive industry, Audi actually replaced the silver three-dimensional car logo with a flat black LOGO as early as 2016. At that time There was also a lot of ridicule. Now it seems that they are actually ahead of the curve.

Unlike Volkswagen and BMW, Audi’s new LOGO is only used for announcement and is not hung on products. For the use of new car logos, this is a method that has the best of both worlds.

Coincidentally, MINI’s approach is similar to Audi’s. In 2017, MINI also launched a new LOGO, which is also a flat design, but it is not hung on current models. It is said that it will not be used until the new MIN electric car comes out.

Mercedes-Benz is an "outlier" in the car industry

It seems that German car companies are very active in changing car logos, until we discover that Mercedes-Benz is an old-fashioned thing. This seems extremely conservative. The three-pointed star logo you are familiar with was a three-dimensional adjustment made by Mercedes-Benz based on the old car logo in 1989, and it has been in use for 31 years.

The logo updates before 1989 can even be traced back to 1933.

We believe that even if Mercedes-Benz wants to change its logo, it is very likely that it will not adopt a flat design, because when Mercedes-Benz’s parent company Daimler changed its LOGO in 2015, it actually adopted a flat text orientation. The plan to return to the metallic texture shows that not all automobile companies accept the flat design idea.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.