Ep. 24 - In The Feed: What's The Real ROI of Rebranding?

The last year has been the year of rebrands. From global giants like Pepsi, Jaguar, and PayPal to design-savvy shifts from SanDisk, Miro, and Sprite. But not all makeovers are created equal. In this deep-dive episode, we unpack the brands that nailed it, the ones that sparked backlash, and the hidden messages behind every pixel change.
We go inside the pitch room, break down the meme economy of rebrands, and explore what aesthetic shifts are really telling your customers and your investors. Have they truly gone from memes to making millions?
This isn’t just about logos. It’s about positioning, perception, and why “safe” is sometimes the riskiest move in a noisy market.
If you’re a designer, strategist, founder, or creator trying to make sense of 2025’s branding chaos, this episode is your blueprint for clarity.

Transcript:

00:00 A glance into the past year
02:17 The rebrands that popped
08: 45 The controversy bait
14:40 Rebrands that felt flat
18:55 Toolkit to make it pop
20:35 Break
22:17 What rebrands are really saying?
23:03 Danger of playing too safe
25:35 Visual landscape of 2025
27:22 Truth about pitching designs to a founder
28:35 What rebrands actually do?
29:57 The meme economy
31:02 The work beneath the surface
31:58 Conclusion

About Pk:
Pratyush has been a designer for more than 6 years. He started creating content to share his knowledge and establish a connection between design and business. He believes that knowledge grows by sharing and he wants to do just that. He is in a journey to help fellow freelancers and content creators make a profitable career.

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Chapters

• 0:00 A glance into the past year
• 2:17 The rebrands that popped
• 8:45 The controversy bait
• 14:40 Rebrands that felt flat
• 18:55 Toolkit to make it pop
• 20:35 Break
• 22:17 What rebrands are really saying?
• 23:03 Danger of playing too safe
• 25:35 Visual landscape of 2025
• 27:22 Truth about pitching designs to a founder
• 28:35 What rebrands actually do?
• 29:57 The meme economy
• 31:02 The work beneath the surface
• 31:58 Conclusion

Transcript

Hi and welcome back to the underdog protagonist. This is in the feed, the series where we sit back, zoom out and try to make sense of what the hell is going on in design, branding and creator culture. Just you, me and a whiteboard full of weird industry moves we are about to unpack. Today's episode is a big one because the last year has been the year of rebrands. Not refreshes, rebrands.

Full blown logo changes, tone shifts, visual makeovers, vision rewrites, identity overhauls, the whole package. And everyone from payment giants to data storage brands got in on the action. Some brands trust it. Immediate impact. Users love clearer story.

But others controversy, confusions, comment sections full of bring back the old one. But here's the thing. Rebrands don't just happen. They signal something. They reveal what brands think culture wants.

They show us where companies are headed and who they might be leaving behind. So in this deep dive, we are walking through the rebrands that popped and why they worked, the ones that flopped and why they caused outrage, what founders, creators and designers can learn from it, and what a rebrand actually means in the era where aesthetic has become algorithm. Now some of you might agree with me and some might disagree. This is just my perspective and opinions I'm bringing on the table. If you're in favor of this, well and good.

And if you're not, then it's okay too. I don't want any backlash. I don't want any controversy going on this. It's just me sharing my opinions, my perspective on the brand revamps. It has been in the trends for quite a few months.

I know I'm late at it but better late than never. Right? This episode is going to be longer than the rest and it's going to be deep. So let's start on a high note. Okay.

Let's talk about the winners The brands that made bold moves got the Internet talking and for once mostly walked away with applause. The one is Sandisk. Sandisk said, what if data had a shape and dropped one of the cleanest, sharpest logo evolutions of the year. They went with a minimal yet meaningful red symbol. A simple wave like s and now anchors the entire identity.

It's flexible. It reads well even at micro sizes and it communicates their shift from just storage to data you can trust. But here's what made it work. They did not just design a logo. They redefined what the brand stands for.

The new identity was paired with the full brand language around speed, flexibility, and flow. Even the motion graphics followed this idea of streaming data. Here are a few reasons I think why it landed. The one is the simplicity makes it instantly recognizable. the brand world expanded around the symbol not just the typeface.

The one is messaging matched the move and the message was from device to cloud, Sandisk moves with you. This wasn't just a redesign. It was a repositioning. A perfect example of how good design follows clear direction. Now let's talk about the one.

One of the boldest shifts in 2025 and they pulled it off. Sprite went flat. Northern flavor in design. They ditched the three d splash, dropped the glass shard gradients and embraced a flat, punchy, hyper modern look. New custom wordmark, tighter angles, vivid green and lemon yellow palette all simplified for maximum impact on digital.

But here's what hit the most. The new design reflects how we consume brand visuals now. Think Instagram stories, YouTube ads, TikToks, streetwear collapse. Sprite understood that if your logo does not work in motion, mobile or merch, it's already outdated. And, here are few reasons why I think it worked.

The one. The design leans into iconography not nostalgia. Number two. The story is playful and poppy without being childish. Number three is it poured the sprite back into relevance with gen-z in design and tone.

Also, shout out to their limited drop cans with creators. It's a real clever move to bridge the old and new brand. Next up on our list is Miro. This one was subtle but so well done. Miro, the collaborative whiteboard tool used by remote teams worldwide updated its identity with more flexibility and storytelling.

They shifted the logo towards a modular grid based icon system. Think post its meets product modules while retaining that same vibrant yellow. It did not scream for attention. It invited exploration. They also rolled out micro animations, product mock ups with layered UI, and used their identity to actually explain how teams use Miro.

Here are a few reasons why it hit. Visual storytelling matched product usage. The modular iconography works for scale from apps to investor decks. And the rollout showed users how Miro evolves, not just that it evolved. And this is where most brands mess up.

They change the look without clarifying the logic. Miro avoided that completely. Now we are discussing about the brands which made it, which popped and after that we'll go into the ones which flopped. The next one in our pop list is Shutterstock. Now this one surprised people.

A platform best known for stock images rebranded with a bold tech forward identity that screams, we are building tools now, not just archives. They introduced a sleek new wordmark, stronger red or black contrast, and a visual language that looks more SaaS than stock. More importantly, they backed it up with product strategy. Shutter stock is leaning into AI, creator tools, generative image support and new licensing models. So the rebrand isn't just a design change.

It's a category shift. Here are a few reasons why it landed. The brand now looks like it belongs in 2025 not 02/2010. It aligns with new product directions. It distances the platform from stock cliches and into creator enablement.

Hot take. This might be one of the most underrated rebrands of the year. Quiet, confident, and cohesive. Here are a few honorable mentions. A quick shout out to brands that quietly crushed their redesigns.

Number one on our list is notion. The core brand stayed intact but they introduced motion UX, flexible themes and updated micro branding across integrations. It's the opposite of loud rebrand. It's experience rebrand. Number two in our list is Duolingo.

It expanded their animation system. A case study in brand maturity. They did not kill duo. They did not kill duo the owl. They gave him a team, a story arc and motion personality.

The one in our honorable mentions list is Adobe Express. They streamlined to compete better with Canva. Clearer typography, more color restraint and UI clarity. Not flashy but functionally strong. Here's the pattern I'm seeing.

The best rebrands of the year weren't trying to impress. They were trying to clarify. They were not louder. They were sharper. They were not trying to follow culture.

They were trying to shape it. They treated design as a bridge between story and product. And when you do that, you don't just land a new logo. You land trust. Okay.

Now let's talk about the controversy bait. Not every rebrand this year landed softly. They weren't necessarily bad but they stirred the pot. And in the age of meme reactions, comment section think pieces and instant visual critique, one questionable rebrand can turn into a viral teardown within hours. So let's break down the ones that sparked debate and why.

Let's start with the biggest controversy of the year. Jaguar dropped a rebrand that stripped the soul of their legacy. They went from a dynamic, leaping cat full of movement and presence to a sterile, flat, tech washed word mark that looked like it belonged to a cryptocurrency startup. The intention to signal Jaguar's shift into an electric tech forward luxury future. The execution felt like someone pressed make its click and forgot to ask, but is it still Jaguar?

Here's what went wrong. Brand equity was discarded, not evolved. The iconic Leaping Jaguar was gone. No reinterpretation, no motion variant, no legacy Nord, just removed. Secondly, tone mismatch.

Luxury does not mean lifeless, especially not for a brand associated with visceral emotion and driving thrill. And lastly, audience rejection. Fans did not just dislike it. They felt betrayed. Jaguar was not just changing its look.

It felt like it was changing who it was for. Here's my design takeaway. You don't need to erase history to evolve. A good rebrand builds forward, not away. The next on our list is PayPal.

PayPal's 2025 refresh was one of the most surprising because it was so utterly forgettable. The new wordmark cleaned up the edges, flattened the icon and muted the blue, all in the name of modern professionalism. But here's the thing. Paypal was not struggling with professionalism. It was struggling with trust.

And instead of doubling down on warmth, safety, or user experience, the visual update made the brand feel colder. Widespread criticism is because it lacked a story. There was no campaign, no narrative, no real why. Just a press release and a new favicon. is its indistinguishability.

PayPal now looks dangerously close to every other fintech startup and that's not a flex when you're the OG. Thirdly, there's a timing confusion. In a moment when trust and personality are design currency, PayPal went minimalist without meaning. And here's the cultural signal I'm seeing. Safe design can be risky when it lacks context.

And in today's market, bland equals to invisible. The next one in our list is Twitch. The iconic glitch that got glitched. Twitch attempted a subtle rebrand this year. Slight type tweaks, UI refinements and color balancing.

But the community, they noticed everything. Here's what changed. The iconic glitch logo, once bold and pixel perfect, felt defanged. New typography felt too neat for a platform rooted in chaos and community memes. Thirdly, color contrast softened, leading to less visual edge.

Now here's why the backlash happened. Twitch's community is its brand. They felt like the change was dictated by corporate cleanup, not cultural resonance. And secondly, function is better than form. Some UI updates actually hurt discoverability and stream page clarity.

Here's how the users reacted on the rebrand. They were like, it looks like a purple YouTube now. Bring back the glitch. Why fix what was not broken? Hence, the twitch rebrand flopped badly.

Number four in our list is Firefox. Firefox's 2025 rebrand did not spark rage, but it did spark confusion. This simplified the fox even further. So far, in fact, that many people thought the new icon was a sunset emoji. And here's the tension.

Their visual system is now more abstract and flexible. Good. But their core mark is now so symbolic, it lacks recognition. It's bad. Here's why it struggled.

Firstly, audience memory. Firefox's fox is iconic. Minimizing it into a swirl took away instant recognizability. Secondly, the narrative was absent. There wasn't a campaign to walk people through the change.

No story equals no buy in. Here's the design lesson for the rebrand. Abstract design can work, but only when backed by clarity. Apple's bitten apple works because we know the story. And Firefox did not remind us.

There's something happening in 2025 that's very modern. If your rebrand does not immediately resonate, it gets memed to death. Jaguar was compared to Word docs. PayPal looked like a generic startup from 2018. Firefox got confused with Duolingo's cousin.

But here's the kicker. Meme culture is not always a death sentence. Sometimes it gives your brand oxygen, but it can also show you what emotion you have lost. Now we have talked about the brands that nailed it. We have unpacked the ones that stirred up controversy.

Now let's zoom into a more complex space. When a rebrand just falls flat. Not terrible, not viral, just meh. The visual's polished, the rollout's coordinated, but somehow it does not land. Let's call this what it is.

The rebrand equivalent of a polite golf clap. The design is technically solid, but emotionally silent. And in the attention economy, silence is the worst outcome. So why does this happen? Number one is tone mismatch.

You're speaking in a new tone, but the audience does not recognize your voice. Number two is ignoring brand memory. Audiences remember how a brand felt, not how it looked. When you throw out the feeling, the design becomes meaningless. Number three is there is no emotional anchor.

Aesthetic updates don't create connection. Story does. Here's the design note. Looking modern does not equal to feeling human. And humans buy stories, not typefaces.

This is where most legacy brands end up. They want a glow up, but not too loud, not too bold, definitely not disruptive, just fresh. So what happens? You get grayscale logos, middleweight sans serif fonts, rounded corners and neutral tones. The brand does not offend, but it does not excite either.

Now, here's why it's dangerous. Safe is not scalable. In a noisy market, forgettable equals failure. Safe erodes recall and you blend in and vanish. There's a quote from Dieter Rams you can reflect on.

He says, good designs make something useful. Great designs makes it unforgettable. And safe never made something unforgettable. Okay. Let's shift gears.

This podcast isn't just for designers. It's for builders, solopreneurs, creators and people turning ideas into identity. So what can you learn from billion dollar rebrands? Number one is you're always telling a story. Whether you're shipping a logo or a LinkedIn post, you're shaping perception.

Number two is positioning is greater than packaging. Don't just design your content, define what you stand for. Number three, you are a brand whether you like it or not. If you don't define the narrative, someone else will. And from my personal experience, for a while, I was stuck in design mode.

Perfect visuals, strong hooks and templates that worked. But when I started writing like a talk, designing like I felt and showing work before it was ready, people resonated more. And here's the takeaway from that. Your wife is your value. People don't follow polish.

They follow presence. Let's talk about pain now. The kind only designers know. You create the perfect redesign. Every detail is considered.

The corning tight, the color balance harmonious, the rollout document chef's kiss and then the client posts it with a caption that sounds like a TED talk written by a chat g p t. No story. No strategy. Just we're excited to unveil a fresh new look. That's when the memes hit.

Because here's the brutal truth. Good design can fail if the story fails. I worked on brands where the visual systems was near perfect. But the launch lacked context. The founders weren't aligned and the audience was blindsided.

And suddenly, all your design work becomes a Twitter thread of roasts. If you are a designer listening to this, here's a toolkit from my site which you can cherish for life. Design the narrative, not just the visuals. Guide your clients on launch storytelling. Push for internal alignment before the public reveal.

This will help you land your design better with the audience and not let it flop with bad storytelling. So now the question remains, what really determines success? Here's a checklist that decides whether a rebrand flies or flops. Number one is internal rollout. Was the team aligned?

Do the employees get the why? Number two, external narrative. Did the audience understand the shift or did it feel like a surprise? Number three, product alignment. Does the visual identity match what the product actually does?

Number four, is audience memory. Did you honor what people already loved or have forgotten that along the way? Number five is cultural timing. Are you ahead of the curve or trying to catch up? If the answers to these questions seem positive, then a rebrand has flown.

Else, it has flopped. Here's a bonus insight from me. A rebrand is 20% visuals and 80% story plus adoption. Because if you only focus on the skin, the soul gets left behind. Okay.

Let's take a quick break and we'll be back with reading the signals and what re brands are really saying. There's a reason behind this quick pause. Because this isn't just another episode. This is the last episode of season two. And if you have made it here, I need you to know what's coming next.

Season three is something different. After a long time, this podcast won't just be my voice. It'll be a conversation with people who have already walked through the fire. Not people who are stuck. Not people who are figuring it out.

People who have built something real, people who have made the breakthrough but still remember the underdog version of themselves and haven't stopped showing up for others. These are founders, creators, thinkers, teachers and more. These are people who are building legacies, not just timelines. And what they're sharing, it's not the highlight reel, it's the unfiltered truth. The part that usually never gets said out loud.

The doubts, the decisions, the stuff they wish someone told them back when it all felt impossible. When season three drops, I don't want you to just find it. I want you to be the person who already knew. If this podcast has ever made you feel seen, what's coming next will make you feel ready. So stay locked in as we slowly transition to season three.

Hoping to see you there really soon. Now let's get spicy because rebrands don't just change how something looks. They send signals to the market, the team and the customers. Here's the signal Miro's rebrand sent. We are not a quirky whiteboard anymore.

We are a serious productivity suite. The message from jaguar rebrand was, we are not the old guard anymore. We are trying to be Tesla chick. The signal from Shutterstock's rebrand was, we are not a stock photo archive. We are a creative toolkit.

If you're a creator, here's the lesson for you. You don't need to change your look to change your perception. But when you do, make sure the signal matches the strategy. Let's talk about the danger of playing too safe. Because for every bold intentional well executed rebrand we have celebrated today, there are 10 more that feel like they were cooked up in a beach Slack channel using chat GPT and a template from 02/2017.

You have seen them. San serif logo, a pastel blue or muted green, rounded corners, all lowercase and a tagline that reads like, we make connections happen. LinkedIn lite? Anyone? Zoom's mini updates?

Even Asana, once bold in its softness, recently tightened its visuals so conservatively that the brand feels like it's been PR trained. But why is this happening? Because safety sells or at least people think it does. Because safe does not get flagged in stakeholder meetings. And because safe doesn't upset legacy users.

But here's the brutal truth. In a market where attention is currency, safe is risky. Safe brands don't get remembered. They don't spark culture. And, they don't inspire loyalty.

They blend, they bore and they get left behind. So ask yourself, would you rather risk a little heat or be entirely forgettable? We have seen it happen time and time again. A brand drops a rebrand on a quiet Tuesday. Within hours, it's on x, Reddit, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Everyone's posting reactions, memes, mock ups, breakdowns and drama. Sometimes it's hate, sometimes it's hype, but either way it pops. Here's the recent example of Sprite that shift from hyper illustrated to flat, bold, and intentionally gen-z aware, it got dragged at It looks like an app icon. Why did they kill the fizz? But give it two weeks and suddenly people were showing off their sprite cans like they were collectibles.

Why? Because sprite did not design to impress designers. They're designed to travel, to show up on social, to be shared and to move. This is a key point most brands miss. You can't force a viral movement, but you can design for one.

Design for velocity, design for remixing and design with an opinion. Let your brand have a spine, not just a style guide. Okay. Let's zoom out and see what's shaping the visual landscape in 2025. Number one is wordmarks are king again.

We are seeing fewer complex icons and more typography led logos. Think modernized sans serif with custom ligatures or spacing. You can check opal or Paypal's new refresh. Secondly, brand kits are greater than standalone logos. Logos are now just one slice of a full identity.

The real play is in scalable brand systems. UI kits, motion presets, merge templates and AI voice identity packages. Number three is motion design Brands are designing for motion, not just static use. Canva, Adobe, even Twitch all rolling out branding that makes sense in reels, banners and interactive layouts. Number four is retrofuturism with a purpose.

We have gone back to the nineties but it's less nostalgia and more intentional tone. You can think of Firefox's sci fi glow and Pepsi's retro gold comeback. Number five, vibes over visuals. Logos are getting simpler but brand tone is getting louder. Personality is showing up in copy, motion and micro interactions.

So, what does this mean for designers? If you're still obsessing over pixels, but ignoring tone, timing and user experience, you're designing in 2016, my friend. The future of brand design is not about the mark. It's about the momentum. Okay.

Let's get raw. What really happens when a designer pitches a rebrand to a founder? I've been on both sides. As a designer, as a strategist, even as the guy, nervously pacing before a client call. Here's the thing.

The founder does not care about your grid system. They don't care that the x in your logo mark aligns with the Fibonacci spiral. This is what they want to know. Will people get it? Will our team feel like this is us?

Will this move the business forward? You could show the slickest Behance deck in the world. But if it does not tell a story that bridges identity to impact, it's just decoration. And here's what clients remember. This color shift communicates confidence.

This new typeface improves legibility on 50 plus use cases. We have crafted this mark to scale from Apple watch to billboard without losing recognition. Remember, aesthetic is the entry. Narrative is the closer. Don't just show them how it works.

Show them why it matters. Time for the big one. What do these rebrands actually do? Do they increase revenue, retention, customer love or investors interest? Short answer, yes.

But only when done right. Let's take a few examples. Pepsi's rebrand. Their visual comeback was not just for gen z aesthetic. It signaled their cultural shift, more inclusive messaging, stronger North American push, and cleaner digital campaigns.

And the net result, spike in ad impressions plus packaging appeal. Here's the example of Sandisk. Post rebrand, Sandisk saw major media pickup and investor sentiment improved. The clean design translated to better trust perception in the enterprise space. Shutterstock, their pivot into creator tools and AI driven design did not just boost product use.

It changed their category. And that's long term ROI, defining your lane. The takeaway. Aesthetic changes don't work alone. But paired with strong rollout, better UX, narrative consistency, and internal alignment, a new brand look can return 10 x the investment in trust, team buy in and conversion rate.

Design isn't fluff. It's a multiplier. Let's not lie. Rebrands get dragged. Twitch, Roasted, Jaguar, Flamed, Firefox, Derailed.

Even PayPal had a full meme cycle in forty eight hours. But here's the funny thing. The best rebrands expect this because we live in a meme economy where every bold move gets twenty four hours of hot takes, screenshots, reworks and Instagram reels. That's not failure. That's exposure.

Some of these brands leaned in, which meme itself then dropped community challenges based on the new look. Firefox released motion explainers that addressed user backlash with humor and transparency. But why does this matter? Because if your rebrand is immediately beloved, it's probably not memorable. The cycle now is hate then confusion then acceptance, affection and then merch.

If your design can survive that, it can thrive. Here's where we close. All this talk about logos, aesthetics and memes, it's just the surface. The real work, the work that moves brands, creators and companies forward is in the repositioning. Changing how people see you, what they can expect from you, and what they believe you stand for.

A logo can signal that but only if it's paired with clear story, product alignment, internal culture shift and audience re engagement. This is your challenge. Whether you're a designer, a founder or a solo creator. Don't design because you're bored. Don't rebrand just because the old one feels old.

Reposition when your vision evolves and then let your design reflect that growth. Because a new logo without a purpose, it's just a pretty lie. That's it for this deep dive episode of in the field. If this landed, if it made you pause before jumping on a design trend or made you rethink how you present your own brand, I'd love to hear from you. DM me the last rebrand you actually loved or better send me your unposted work.

The stuff that feels risky. And if you're a designer burnt out from designing for the algorithm, take this as your permission to design for yourself again. Because the brands that win in 2025 and beyond, they won't be the safest. They'll be the most alive. Thank you so much for listening to the end.

You can let me know what rebrands you liked the most and what flops made you question on the brand. You have been listening to the underdog protagonist. This was in the feed and I'll catch you in the next season. Until then, take care.