Intel

From 2006, Intel was the word intel in a blue ring that wrapped under and flicked off to the right. People called it the drop-o. It sat on PC lids as a promise about what was inside. You could see the swirl before you could read the letters, which is useful when the letters are on a sticker the size of a thumbnail, next to a cooling vent.

On 2 September 2020, with 11th Gen chips, the ring came off. Andrew Mirakian at VMLY&R drew a custom face, Intel One. The square dot on the i stayed. Intel called it the third logo in company history and opened the colour range past Intel Blue. The Verge called it minimalist, which was accurate and not a compliment if you remember what the swirl was for.

The swirl made the name a sealed object

FutureBrand had put that ring on in 2006, evolving the 1968 dropped-e. The dropped-e was already a joke that worked: intel, incomplete, still going. The swirl turned the joke into a device. A processor sticker has to read on a laptop, in a TV spot, and on a shelf. The swirl made those three jobs the same object.

Without it, you have a sturdy sans with a square i, which anyone can buy. Mirakian’s letters are better than a free font. That is not the test. The test is whether the mark still owns a shape that cannot be Intel-plus-a-different-word. A square i is a detail. A ring that wraps the name is a lock.

The 2020 work subtracts the evolution. Intel had spent fourteen years teaching people that the company looked like motion around a word. Then it decided the motion was clutter. Clutter is what you call a distinctive shape when you have a new brand system to install.

Inside a laptop lid, letters are not enough

Google had already moved personality out of the word and into a separate G. Intel did not even keep a separate device. The swirl was the device, and it left with the letters’ enclosure. UPS took a parcel off a shield and still had a shield. Intel took the ring off and had type.

Chip branding is a weird corner of logo design. The customer is often an OEM. The person who sees the sticker did not buy Intel; they bought a computer that wanted to look fast. The drop-o was a little piece of theatre for that person. Intel One is a word that looks like it belongs in a keynote. Both can be true. Only one of them made a lid look like it had something happening inside.

The swirl is gone. The square i stayed, which is the sort of consolation prize a design team points to when the object has already left. It is still Intel. It is no longer a picture of Intel.

• Intel debuts a new logo alongside its 11th Gen chips, The Verge, 2 September 2020
• Intel Rebrand, Andrew Mirakian