Bandai Namco Reveals New Logo, Everyone Hates It

I don't like this trend where brands change their logos from good looking to... that...

It is rather generic. Logos are meant to be recognizable and the former one was. You could see those colors from a distance without even reading any text and you'd be able to tell it's Bandai Namco, and if you put it in the midst of a hundred other company logos you'd still spot it in a sec.

Try out that second thing with the new logo, however, and you'll end up with the corporation equivalent of Where's Waldo.

Funny thing is they probably paid someone a decent amount of money to come up with that!

Looks way too bland. The old logo is so iconic and better. I get that they want a speech bubble to represent the manga culture but they could have at least stylized better.

Not bad. Strong color choice and I think the slightly narrower font looks better, but the whole word balloon thing might be a bit too cute. Of course, any sort of drastic change will elicit gripes, but the two blobs in slightly different shades or orange was really not that great. Of course, the original red on white Namco font will always have a place in my heart thanks to the PSOne Namco Classics collection.

"Fun for All into the Future" sounds like something North Korea would put on a sign outside a labour camp.

The old logo looks tacky, bordering garish. All for this change, boring is timeless. “Fun” logos age like milk.

It's all about the simple colours these days, especially with white or transparency. DualSense killed the button colours, y' know like Instagram with its black & white etc. Extra simplicity is the new design choice in a lot of stuff like UI, case you haven't noticed. Of course the internet's will blow everything out of proportion, like eFootball22 which still looks better than FIFA22 well apart from the pitch from a distance. But in this Bandai Namco case though, they could've maintained the old logo but with white fills and orange and red borders/outlines for those 2 merging distorted oval shapes, neat.

Well, the PR team and its designers still get their paycheck.

My problem with it is Bandai is still included in the logo.

As someone who worked on advertising, including designing new logos, i can tell you that much thought went into the design and it makes sense.
But, the visual design leaves much to be desired. Surely they would be able to do more with it. Logos are made to be simple and easily replicated. But, you know... maybe it's a personal preference, but i don't think it stands out much and that is a loss of potential revenue imo. Honestly, it is reminiscent of banking logos. I wonder if they were going for that...
With that said, it is likely bandai namco asked for it to be in that ballpark. Likely they had a few options too and chose that. But, i am not certain how this works in japan.

Fire whoever is responsible for that design change !

I mean it's a speech bubble...their new logo is the company's name in a speech bubble...I don't really care anyway but a speech bubble? Why a speech bubble?

Looks like a customer experience forcused logo I guess. Bit bland for my taste. I think they have probably made some unannounced business decision that this plainer logo will be more appropriate for.

Bandai Namco!! Fun for all into the future! Yes murderers, fascists, racists fun for all, we don't discriminate!! Look! It in a speech bubble that looks like social media so it's true! And the fun goes into the future which will always be out of reach!! And because we can't go to the past and the present is already here right....now...and now....and now... so it doesn't count!!

Thanks, I hate it.

Hey not everyone hates it, I kind of like it.

Just kidding I hate it too

The irony of the slogan. Its fun as dreamed up in the mind of a bunch of stuffy execs, whereas in reality it is sterile and bears no resemblance to a company that makes entertainment products

I actually like the concept behind the logo, but it could have been implemented in a far more visually appealing and memorable way. Surely the point of a brand logo is to become iconic, not just be meaningful.

@thefourfoldroot what is the concept behind it? That it looks like a text message?

I happen to like this tbh, gives it a clean & modern look. What I don't like is when a company puts their cheesy tagline in their logo.

Keep the design clean guys.

Miss the classic red NAMCO logo. That logo is intrinsically tied with some of the most important and ground breaking games ever made. I don't see this logo being attached to anything that will even come remotely close to those.

@Integrity
Just what it says in the article;

“ Bandai Namco exists to share dreams, fun and inspiration with people around the world. Connecting people and societies in the enjoyment of uniquely entertaining products and services”

So yes, using a speech bubble in this context is appropriate, but the image itself is just dull.

It looks like the Team Knowhow design language. No.

Well looks like I got the 'example' material for my college course work. Thanks Bandai-Namco.

I have to write a paper on how logo design changes can sometimes be beneficial to a company's image or not as is the case here as I defo prefer the original.

Heck I might even try to do a design myself just to demonstrate how I would have made it look taking account of it's user base etc.

One of the most important reason for a brand logo is recognisability.

This new logo is about as recognisable as a pebble on a beach.

@thefourfoldroot they may as well used an image of the Human Centipede because this speech bubble, like you say, is utterly bereft of imagination. Any schoolkid could've come up with that.

Lol. At this point it feels like less of a trend and more like every designer in the world lost all their talent at once and can only do the most basic, unimaginative design possible. It's a bloody terrible trend.

I wasn't a fan of the current one either though so it's not a huge loss in this case.

@Sebatrox Nope only makes it look worse.

Wow its ugly, bland, boring and something a 5 year old could come up with. I take that back a kid would so a better job.

The new logo is like a chat box, it's kind of weird but it's not that bad. It's underwhelming though.

Comic book guy mode activate:

Worst. Logo. Ever.

well it is awful, that's barely a logo at all anyway

The new logo is dull, but so was the old one. The original Namco had a logo you could set your watch to and made kick ass Ridge Racer games.
Namco Bandai makes dull anime games and has the logo of a architect firm.

Fun for all, except our logo.

The old one was terrible, this one is just as bad. 90% of developers have awful branding. It’s strange, you’d think they would be more on top of things like that.

Doesn't matter if the logo is good or bad, any publicity is good publicity.

@Jeevz tell that to PrinceAndrew

Change the magenta to red and it's fine in my opinion. Red was the primary colour for both the Namco and Bandai logos (both of which were way better than the previous Bandai Namco ones) before they merged so it would be a nice callback.

@Integrity I will when I see his umm...logo

@Jeevz are you 15 and blonde? If so you've probably seen it already.

As long as the games are good, I don't really care what the logo looks like.

Change for changes sake. There is no discussion here, it’s abysmal. From an instantly recognisable logo to something completely bland and instantly forgettable.

Is this supposed to be echoing a trend for minimal design? What’s wrong with the old one.

“Why do always have to keep mucking about with things?”.

Let’s say it was very difficult to come up with a logo that looked worse than their current one but they rose to the occasion!

'Fun for all' With the least fun looking logo I could imagine.
In fact to me it screams 'we are now a professional company' and not a company that makes fun, anime games.
I wasn't a big fan of their original logo but it's way better and more distinctive.

Instead of trying to improve their company logo, I wish they put in effort to improve their games based on different anime.

I thought, for a first sight, that they launch new "facebook" or what...

It's awful and incredibly generic, a completely pointless change

Why do people even care about a corporate logo this much

They are corporations, they don't care for you, why spend time caring about their logo being shaped to look more like they really are

Yeah, looks like crap. What happened to "if it ain't broke don't fix it"?

@Integrity so the new Namco/Bandai logo is comparable to Prince Andrew. Got it.

Don’t like it at all, but it will be fine once we are all adjusted to the new one.

I wonder how much they paid for this?

Edit: I wonder how much we paid for this?

A lot of logo changes look just fine. Sony Santa Monica looks better than it used to. Insomniacs old logo was cool but was very 90s, and the new one is alright.

This one looks too sterile and juvenile, but whatever - it's a logo. I think it's worse than average.

Incidentally, Sony has had basically the same logo since 1946!

@KippDynamite Well with how iconic it looks, it's no wonder Sony has kept it all this time. There's no reason to change it.

How much time is spent for creating the new desig? I think the designer team need at least one week holiday for that tremendous work 🤣🤣🤣

My 8 year old kid can do that in 1min in MS word

@Jeevz 🤣 👊

I much prefer the old one due to the fun-factor and the Pacman-like colors. The new one looks more like a PSA warning logo, like 'Click It or Ticket'.

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｜ BANDAI NAMCO ｜
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　　Fun for All into the Future

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Fu©k they really are just looking more and more like a cheap knock off version of their past self.

It’s simple. Could’ve done better. But I don’t care either way. It’s no big deal.

Dude, that design is terrible. We should have a Bandai Namco design contest on this site. I’d be willing to bet that at least 90% of PushSquare’s users would create better designs.