MINI goes minimalist with a new LOGO – it’s back to the 1990s

BMW has decided that MINI need a new logo to move the brand forward, and it’s a flat interpretation of the Mini logo from the 1990s.

Ever since MINI was revived by BMW in 2001 it’s had pretty much the same logo, with a three dimensional set of wings at each side of a circular MINI badge. But BMW has decided it’s time for a change.

Brand identity is a big deal for all businesses, although the public do find it amusing that they’re prepared to spend big bucks for a ‘creative’ agency to deliver something they think their 7-year old could have done.

No doubt the same charge will be laid at BMW’s door as it forks out for Berlin agency KKLD to take the existing MINI logo and re-do it as a flat black and white motif. But they have, and it will be MINI’s new brand logo from 2018.

In many ways the new logo harks back to the one we saw on the 1990s Mini – before BMW took over – with four lines of reducing size on each side of  ‘MINI’ script in a circle, but now it’s a completely flat, two-dimensional symbol of MINI.

Of course, this isn’t the first time there’s been a new logo for Mini, and for some time there were several.

When the Mini launched in 1959 there were two versions initially – the Morris Mini Minor and Austin Seven – each with their own logos, as well as the Wolsey Hornet and Riley Elf if you wanted something a bit more individual (and a bit more expensive).

But the Austin and Morris Minis morphed in to just the Mini within a few years, and by 1969 there was just one variant complete with a Mini ‘Shield’.

That stayed until 1990 when the Mini Cooper got a new logo with wings and a laurel wreath, which eventually turned in to the Mini logo this new version is pretty much based on.

Give it a few years and the logo will just be a black ‘M’.