Rebranding: LogMeIn becomes GoTo

Rebranding season has arrived.

After the Pannon, sorry, Telenor » Yettel rebranding project, here is another one from this week, now at a hugely successful, Hungarian-founded start-up:

LogMeIn has become GoTo.

Moving Brands, a San Francisco based multinational agency was hired for the project, and they shared an interesting animation reel on their LinkedIn page.

The highly detailed brand guidelines are available online, specifying verbal, visual and branding aspects. It is worth a closer look.

I checked every material available, and what I found all suggest that this is a major rebranding, not just some finetuning. LogMeIn’s previous image and communication had a corporate feel and were sort of old-school, the visual and verbal messages of the new brand are clearly more youthful now.

Rebranding, the story of the visual identity

Interestingly, in its early, start-up years, LogMeIn was going for a more corporate, more consolidated look and feel to fit in.

Now in 2022, when it is already a multinational company with 3000+ employees worldwide, the whole brand got a more youthful image—it looks 20 years younger as if it was a start-up now.

This is, in large part, due to the new brand name, GoTo, which, if I got it right, is just the new brand name, legally the company will still be called LogMeIn. GoTo is short and expressive, it works almost as a sign, so no brand mark was needed. The meaning of GoTo sums up the activities of the brand, and the verbal communication built on that is a perfect frame for the message with its brief commands:

GoTo: making IT easy everywhere.

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel that the typographic highlighting of the it/IT correspondence is a bit too much, but it’s tolerable 🙂

The typeface used in the logo has a very contemporary and fresh feel: we see wide proportions, rigid and raw geometric forms. All three letters (G-t-o) can be built from simple geometric forms, and maybe they are not even parts of a typeface, rather what we see is a unique piece of typography.

Thinking about this, I checked how much the geometric forms are equalised optically. I suspect that if it was a font, these would be refined. As the illustration below shows, they are not, and this is what gives the text that raw and contemporary look: the width of the horizontal strokes is not compensated to achieve perceptual balance with the vertical strokes, and the letter ‘o’ is a geometrically perfect circle, which is rarely used in typography.

An illustration in the Styleguide shows the construction of the logo, revealing that the basic design principle was the upward direction of the elements:

The whole visual language of the brand identity is based on the details of the typography, which results in the raw geometry of the typographic forms. To put it simply, the basic geometric forms from which the letters are created are used as graphic elements of the visual identity:

And these basic elements incorporate the keywords of the brand: empowerment, flexibility, fun and momentum.

I don’t know if this trendiness of the typography will age well, but since it is a digital brand, this is not a critical issue, as it can be updated and refined quickly, even after just a few years. Maybe it is this rawness that results in the fresh feel.

Besides the logo, I can see two fonts being used, Atyp Display in headings and Proxima Nova in body text.

I have not mentioned the underline in the logo, another part of the visual identity—this is a simple gesture that emphasises the Goto typography. Without it, the typography would be weightless, but the yellow ‘underline’, one the one hand, provides emphasis, and, on the other hand, with its ascending direction it conveys a positive message.

A number of small, conscious decisions, each of them a visual response in itself, are put together to create a consistent message coded in the sign.

The word Goto is used together with the colour yellow (#FFE900), which is applied widely in the visual identity. It is used boldly on large surfaces, providing a strong visual experience. The colour yellow is energising, it radiates joy and a positive attitude, and I think it results in a very friendly atmosphere overall.

The whole audiovisual experience is defined by a fresh, modern and progressive visual language. Check out the 30-second spot introducing the brand 👇

I learned that the refresh of the look of the brand is done simultaneously with a product level update, so there is a radical change that is reflected in the UI design of the products, too. The comprehensive Design Language System of Goto has also been updated, so after the flagship products, every product will get a facelift.

Geez

The letter G may look familiar, there are quite similar forms in the refreshed GLS visual identity, and you see the same visual idea in the last letter of the new Euroleasing design.

Perhaps it is a trend that the letter G is turned into an arrow, or it may be just a strange coincidence, I don’t know.

Verdict

We haven’t seen the brief, but the result clearly shows a visual response, so if they did a good job, we can assume my conclusions are right and what they did is really good. Let me add that at such a huge company, committing to such a change then designing and implementing it is a huge job—I suppose the results that we see now took Goto several months or even well over a year to achieve.