Squiggles Upon Squiggles: The Nagarro Rebrand Explored

Nagarro, an engineering leader driving businesses forward through effective technologies — a brand with over 12,000+ experts working for them across 27 countries — has taken the change in year as an opportunity to shake things up a little.

They rebranded, altering the logo and visual identity of the brand in a rather significant way.

It’s a bold change for a brand that has been in business since 1996. That being said, Nagarro do claim to have an ‘agile and caring mindset’ which certainly played a big part in the changes you can now see on the website and in other marketing materials.

The changes were made in-house, which is always a risky bet for various reasons. Going with an agency would have provided them with more options, still, there’s something to be commended about doing it yourself — even if there’s a few things we might have done differently.

Was this a good call to do it all internally in the end? Well, there’s only one way to find out…

Let’s dive in and look at this rebrand in full!

The Old Nagarro Logo Needed Changing 100%

The heading kind of spoils the thrill of suspense, but the opinion stands: the old logo was far too plain for its own good, and looks like an imitation of the old Amazon logo with that yellow smudge underneath the Nagarro name.

And if we’re being totally honest, the wordmark looked far too static for a company that claims to be ahead of the curve. Even looking at this old logo is slightly confusing for those interested in aligning with someone in the tech solutions market.

Would you work with them with a logo like that?

To wrap our thoughts on the old logo in a neat bow: the old logo was just there, feeling a lot like a mock up of a future logo that would never arrive.

Until now.

Nagarro logo
Credit to Nagarro

The Loopy N Arrives

Enter a new logo, one that Nagarro has gone all in on, considering how much it influences the brand identity from a colour/design standpoint.

Some of you might be wondering what that squiggly line is off to the right, and the simple answer is: it’s the letter N.

The art style of the loopy N reminds us of the hands of certain Disney characters. Can you see what we see or are we going loopy ourselves?

The lucid feel of the logo is supposed to have an elastic type of vibe to it in that it acts as a “living thing; a symbol that metamorphoses into different images and meanings.” It’s an interesting idea that is balanced quite nicely with the formal/not formal Nagarro name off to the right of it.

The switch to the Hoftype’s EquipExtended typeset is a noticeable change compared to what was previously in its place.

Having a multifaceted element to your logo opens you up to a world of opportunity, and for a business like Nagarro that plays right into their hands.

Nagarro website
Credit to Nagarro

Application Of The New Logo

Nagarro’s new logo transitions seamlessly to other parts of the identity. The loose nature of the logo allows the brand to bend it in all sorts of interesting ways on the site, often in a very experimental fashion.

In the image we’ve included above, the illustrations on screen break your typical website conventions in a way that is engaging as it is eye-catching.

Some will strongly dislike, if not hate this sort of approach, but I for one think it’s a very creative way of taking your standard site layout and turning it on its head.

Again, it also appeals to the free-flowing nature of the brand in that they’ll work with just about anyone and are highly adaptable.

Making each page adaptable to the design only fleshes out this mantra.

Nagarro annual report brochure
Credit to Nagarro

The Updated Brand Identity

Identity-wise, the updates certainly add a lot more from an animated standpoint. The emphasis on gradients, photography and squiggly illustrations are noticeable (in a good way).

The ‘A New Day…’ annual report brochure is a great example of when this all comes together in unison. Don’t get it twisted, there are some pages where it feels like there’s a gazillion things going on at once, but it is balanced with scarcer pages.

Why Go Bold?

Some have highlighted the use of bold as headings within the brochure being a little off-putting and I have to agree.

It does feel slightly heavy at times, to the point where it pulls focus away from other parts of the brochure (from within). On the cover, the text is a decent size, allowing the artwork to breathe on its own.

Inside tells a different story, as the titles are overbearing at times, and make the copy below feel a little unimportant as a result. It’s jarring when you notice it.

Squiggles Upon Squiggles: The Nagarro Rebrand Explored

When you have a logo as poor as Nagarro’s original, practically any change is considered a step in the right direction. Still, the new face and fresh identity shown here is pretty good, all things considered.

Sure, the boldness of some of the headings are a distraction, but that shouldn’t take anything away from the free-flowing nature of the loopy/squiggly noodle that is the new logo.

There are elements of this rebrand that could fool you in thinking that it was handled by an actual agency, but the use of bold within the brochure is a dead giveaway that it was done in-house.

Be sure to share your thoughts on this Nagarro rebrand with us on social, but yeah, we like it.

We want your take.

Hey! My name is Bella and I am a Junior Designer here at Canny! I help create amazing brand designs for people as well as websites!

Read here