Facebook rebrands as Meta to usher in “new chapter”

Facebook has rebranded as Meta, a move which brings its apps which include WhatsApp and Instagram under a new corporate brand.

The change in name is an attempt to match the company’s future ambitions, according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “Right now our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can’t possibly represent everything we’re doing today, let alone in the future,” he says.

The identity was designed in-house by the company’s brand and product teams. The name of the Facebook social platform will not change.

“We chose ‘Meta’ because it can mean ‘beyond’,” the design team explains, referring to the word’s Greek origins. “For our company, Meta is a reminder that there is always more to build.”

The new logo has been crafted to “live in motion and 3D” as well as 2D contexts, the team says. It has been designed as a single, continuous line using Quest – Meta’s own virtual reality technology.

The symbol resembles both an ‘m’ and also an infinity sign, while blue has been retained from Facebook’s previous corporate identity.

The logo “is designed to be experienced from different perspectives and interacted with”, the design team says, while also “symbolising infinite horizons in the metaverse”.

The designers say that the new logo can “take on infinite textures, colours and movements, capturing the creativity and imagination of a 3D world”. In a series of 3D visualisations, the new logo is shown in pixelated form as well as breaking up into different shapes.

The new wordmark has been created in an attempt to suit Facebook’s wide-ranging products, according to the in-house team. It uses the company’s own typeface, which was revealed in 2019.

What is the metaverse?

Although definitions vary, the metaverse is broadly considered to be the next generation of the internet and how it intersects with virtual spaces and products.

The name Meta ties into the metaverse, which is a crucial element of the company’s future according to Zuckerberg.

In his founder’s letter, the CEO says the metaverse will be the “next chapter” of both the company and the internet. “The next platform will be even more immersive – an embodied internet where you’re in the experience, not just looking at it,” he says. “We call this the metaverse, and it will touch every product we build.”

The metaverse will seek to make the way we socialise and work online more immersive, he explains. In a video which attempts to visualise how the metaverse will work, Zuckerberg shows how these immersive spaces can be accessed through headsets or tech-enabled glasses.

“The defining quality of the metaverse will be a feeling of presence – like you are right there with another person or in another place,” he adds.

While Zuckerberg himself admits that these spaces are still in the future, designers have been exploring this technology in recent years, from working together and even sketching together in VR.

The future of Facebook

The rebrand comes at a time of heightened media scrutiny for the tech company. Whistleblower Frances Haugen has been testifying before the US Congress about Facebook’s policies, including its impact of young people and how it deals with misinformation.

Facebook’s previous corporate identity was designed by consultancy Saffron and type foundry Dalton Maag in 2019.

Google made a similar rebranding effort in 2015, when it revealed the umbrella corporate identity Alphabet which houses its sub brands, including the Google search platform.

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