Buick logo revamp came from ‘happy accident’

Reuss, in a statement to Automotive News, called Buick’s new badge “the first significant update to the logo in more than three decades.”

“The redesigned columns of the tri-shield incorporate fluid movements that convey motion,” Reuss said. “It’s sleek and dynamic, and I love that we’ll see it on all Buicks going forward into the new era of electrification for the brand and for the company.”

Buick has said it plans to have a fully electric lineup by 2030. Last year, it debuted the Wildcat EV concept, which brand leaders have said will influence the design of future production vehicles.

Since 1959, Buick’s logo has incorporated a tri-shield and a ring. The shields were meant to symbolize the brand’s Invicta, LeSabre and Electra models, said David Haskell, a creative designer for Buick brand identity who refined Richmond’s original sketch into the completed logo.

Richmond and his design colleagues were taking a more modern approach with gestures and slashes, said Haskell, whose team removed the circle and spaced the shields apart but next to each other. The design keeps an angled sash that he said helps to maintain brand recognition.

The new design “still feels like Buick,” he said. “We feel that people can still recognize like, Oh, this feels modern and new,’ but there’s some continuity to history that’s still significant.”

That matters because a logo doesn’t appear only on vehicles, McCabe said. It shows up on employee business cards, coffee mugs, the brand’s website and dealership signage. The changeover to the new logo will start to happen this year, Buick said.

“You’re designing this brand-new face and it’s super modern, and from the studio’s perspective, then you put the sort of old badge back on it, it sort of dates everything,” McCabe said. “It all ties in. It’s all part of the bigger story of what we’re trying to do with the brand overall.”