Established in 1989 with the merger of Ernst & Whinney (previously Ernst & Ernst, est. 1903) and Arthur Young (est. 1906), Ernst & Young is one of the leading global providers of assurance, tax, transactions, and advisory services and are among the elite “Big Four” who handle the majority of audits for publicly traded companies. Over 167,000 employees work at its 700-plus offices in more than 140 countries. This week Ernst & Young introduced various changes: a new Global Chairman and CEO, a change of public name to EY, a new logo, and a new purpose, “ Building a better working world”. No design credit given.
Update: Identity was designed by London-based BrandPie
From 1 July we will be called EY. Shortening our name will provide consistency and ease of use for EY practices and clients around the world. We have also redesigned our logo, reflecting our new brand name clearly in the design. Our new brand name and logo demonstrate clearly and boldly who we are and reflect the goal we have recently set ourselves to be the number one brand in our profession.
press release
We know that building a better working world is an ambitious objective but it is an incredibly important aspiration and will be front and center of everything we do as an organization.
press release
You know… I had never really paid attention to the old Ernst & Young logo. From memory I would have remembered it had a tilted, square icon of some sort but I hadn’t realized it was a minimal, interlocked “E” and “Y”. So very nice. The accompanying type wasn’t too terrible and it clearly stated the company’s seriousness. The new logo maintains the interlocking “E” and “Y” approach but in the least unimaginative, unexciting, uncontrollably dull way possible. Perhaps they were aiming for sophisticated, bold simplicity but they missed that target by miles. The new logo also makes more clear use of the “Beam” graphic that has already been used by the company for some time (see top image) but it does nothing in favor of the monogram — if anything, it makes the logo look more like a trucking company or the parent company of Budget car rental.
In application, judging from some things that can be gleaned from the photos above, there seems to be some “cool” supporting graphics in the form of illustrations across the window walls and in the video playing on the lobby screens, but there doesn’t seem to be a clear story here. Overall, a boring logo, executed without any flavor that does little in building a better working world.
