Sandisk Corporation, the maker of flash drives and memory cards, debuted a new logo today, and it’s based on a single pixel.
“It all started with the smallest unit of information, the pixel,” said Andre Filip, CEO of ELA Advertising, which helped develop the new visual identity with Sandisk ahead of its planned spin-off from Western Digital next year. .
The new minimalist logo retains the open letter “D” shape seen in Sandisk’s previous logo, and the pixel concept appears in the new logo’s letter “S” reduced to a cone shape and a small pixel square.
“This is the first letter; it’s like the cornerstone of the company,” says Joel Davis, Sandisk’s vice president of innovation.
The goal was to create a futuristic logo, and if the letter-shaped red cone shapes read vaguely NASA-like, just know that the new logo might look like a spaceship in the design process. The logo is presented in both vertical and horizontal versions.
Sandisk was founded in 1988 as SunDisk and changed its name in 1995. Western Digital bought Sandisk for $15.59 billion in 2016; but last year its parent company announced plans to split its flash and hard drive businesses into two separate public companies.
The design process included getting feedback from a former Sandisk employee. “We really wanted him to love it,” Davis said of the original employee (and he did). They also tested it with members of the public and were reassured by the positive response.
“I would literally go to a retail store, buy a monitor and talk to people, ‘Do you know Sandisk?’ and they say yes we sell it. “‘Would you like to see the new logo?’ Davis says.
The team behind the redesign saw it as a chance to redefine the brand for a new era.
“The brand has been around since the late ’80s, and while it’s a great logo, we really had this opportunity to bring the company into the future,” Davis said.