From finance to finesse: payoneer's rebrand

Logo redesigns, over the years, come with a barrage of opinions from around the world. Designers, like me, like to give opinions—and when we don't want to give them, we have them nonetheless.

Uber's fifth logo in 3 years is a stark reminder of how incredible the designer's mind thinks. More often than not, the review mob is filled with short term thinkers. You would come to see it in the comments on Kia, Renault, Peugeot, Warner Bros and TotalEnergies' rebrands for example.

Burger King, however, seemed to be an exception. While you'd expect a snarky comment somewhere, the design community seemed to receive it with joy. It was an outlier.

When Payoneer took up the challenge to show the world their new look, the response was familiar. It would be a barrage of mocking, memes and jokes in the absence of a coherent reason for why it was not good enough.

It's only more interesting, this time, that it is a consensus. Everyone seems to agree that Payoneer did shit. Yet, when you hear everyone's reason, it points to that short termed thinking I spoke up about a few minutes ago.

The generic consensus that brand is the customer's gut feeling about a business, service or product gets thrown out the window when the logo critic takes the stage. The argument builds muscle on the critic's visual perception, level of exposure and height of experience.

However, make no mistake, Payoneer's new logo is shit, to me.

Payoneer, renowned for helping people transfer money across borders and manage international transactions, is your textbook FinTech company, no cap.

The very obvious red has been known to be the colour of your solution to international payments troubles. So you'd expect that it would form a big part of their new look.

What did we get? A rainbow., not that I am entitled to a red.

I actually see no problem with it. I do not like it, but I am also not repulsed by the decision.

I think that logo design is evolving. Designers are making new decisions about how a logo should look like and what it can mean. Companies are looking different that you'd perceive them to be.

Somehow, it is coming to public knowledge, that the logo gains its relevance from the company it represents. Yet, the response to this knowledge seems to be a lazy approach to designing logos.

Payoneer exemplifies it.

Because a logo is a part of an identity, I looked forward to a system that would build on what Payoneer had from its previous look.

What did I meet again? Rainbows.

And it got me thinking, is Payoneer still a FinTech company? I hate this now, but will I grow to ignore it for the function they will provide? Will the identity evolve into something unique and special for its customers?

When a rebrand happens, the company makes a subtle promise, an indicator, to its customers that they are better—for you.

Is "better" for Payoneer supposed to be a stark contrast to what they used to be?

Anyways, despite the lashes, we will get used to it.

The unfortunate big difference between brand identity design and other fields of design is that the former is more about the company than it is the customer.

Just like a naming ceremony, no one goes around soliciting for feedback before choosing the name for the child. And if it is a hard-to-pronounce name or a long name, we will improvise.

Payoneer may grow to change this soon, and they may not. They may usher in a new dawn of rebranding companies that will hurt so many conservative designers.

See it like this.

When they spend millions of marketing dollars, will you come to associate the rainbow with Payoneer? Yes.

However, does that make it aesthetically pleasing, and by-the-book, a right choice? No.

Yet, does it work if you can identify Payoneer? Yes.

I think we can continue living not knowing what we'd have done if we had the gig.

See you next week.

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