Square rebrands to Block – Design Week
by IBRAHIM
Square rebrands to Block – Design Week
Financial payments company Square was set up by Twitter founder and ex-CEO Jack Dorsey in 2009, and will now be known as Block.
Square, the financial services company established by Twitter founder and ex-CEO Jack Dorsey, has been rebranded and will now operate under the corporate identity of Block.
Set up by Dorsey in 2009, the company has evolved over the last decade. As well as offering financial services, Block has a majority stake in music streaming platform Tidal, is the parent company for Cash App and owns several companies working in the cryptocurrency market.
The companies operated by Block – including Square – will not change their names. Block says the new name “acknowledges the company’s growth” and will act as “an overarching ecosystem” – or corporate brand.
“Building blocks, neighbourhood blocks, a blockchain”
The name change is symbolic, according to the company. “[Block] has many associated meanings,” it says. “Building blocks, neighbourhood blocks and their local businesses, communities coming together at block parties full of music, a blockchain, a section of code, and obstacles to overcome.”
All these different meanings are alluded to in a new brand launch film created for the rebrand. In the bright, futuristic animation, viewers are taken through the various references, before being shown the family of companies housed under the new Block umbrella.
An animated primary logo
The brand video also gives an insight into the thinking behind the new logo. In it, square logos representing the Block brands are stacked into a cube – this is then twisted and abstracted, resulting in the new logo.
Crucially, the Block website states that the primary logo for the brand is an animated one, and that this should be used in place of a static one wherever possible. The animated logo sees the cube twisted in different ways with an ever-changing oil-slick-like finish.
The vivid new colour palette is a stark contrast to the muted monochrome of the previous Square identity. Additionally, the simple sans-serif typeface of the original wordmark has been swapped out for a blockier font which appears in all-caps.
At the time of publishing Block has been unable to confirm whether the design work has been done in-house or by an external consultancy.
“Not to go all meta on you…”
The news of Square’s rebrand to Block comes just days after founder Dorsey announced he would be stepping down as CEO of Twitter. Dorsey is famously interested in cryptocurrency, and many are suggesting the successive moves are a sign of him “doubling down” on this focus.
Square is not the only major tech company to rebrand this year – with Facebook changing its corporate name to Meta in October. Like Square, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly felt the Facebook brand name didn’t accurately represent how the company was operating in 2021 and beyond.
In a playful nod to the Facebook rebrand, Square even referenced the new name in a tweet about the launch of Block, saying: “Not to go all meta on you… but we’re going to!”
Not to get all meta on you… but we’re going to! Block references the neighborhood blocks where we find our sellers, a blockchain, block parties full of music, obstacles to overcome, a section of code, building blocks, and of course, tungsten cubes.
— Square (@Square) December 1, 2021
What do you think of the new brand? Let us know in the comments below…
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