STORIES

Redefining Facebook’s brand identity

PROCESS
BRAND DESIGN
PRODUCT DESIGN
By Tagu Kato, VP, Head of Design, Facebook
5 min read
September 20, 2023
A collage shows Facebook's refreshed brand identity, with the updated Facebook logo; a portrait overlaid with text reading "Open your world;" in-app product images, Facebook's blue color palette; an example of the Facebook Sans typeface; and examples of Facebook Reactions.

SUMMARY

Learn how teams across Facebook came together to evolve and unify the app’s brand identity.

An animated summary of Facebook's refreshed brand identity. A collection of visuals, including the Facebook logo and wordmark, Facebook Reactions, the Facebook Sans typeface, in-app product shots, photos and animations of people intermix with overlaid text that reads" Designing for a world of social discovery. Everything we create inspires you to explore further. Effortless and purposeful. Opening your world in both big and small ways.
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Highlights of the Facebook brand identity system.

With 2 billion daily active users coming to Facebook each day, our app is a place where people can explore, connect and share their interests with real people. And, we’re continuously evolving to make it easier for people to discover more about the world around them with the help of others — from connecting with those who matter most, to finding communities that share interests, to exploring new ideas and experiences that fuel curiosity.



As we continue our evolution as an app and a brand, we’re excited to launch the first phase of a refreshed identity system for Facebook, with a focus on fostering effortless, self-initiated exploration and connection across every touchpoint.

  • Elevate the most iconic elements of our brand to create a distinctive, refreshed Facebook

  • Unify how the Facebook brand comes to life across product-to-marketing experiences

  • Create an expansive set of colors — anchored in our core blue — that is comprehensive and vibrant, and also designed to be more accessible for people

Driving the Facebook logo forward

Our intention was to create a refreshed design of the Facebook logo that was bolder, electric and everlasting. Each of the distinctive, new refinements drive greater harmony across the entire design as a key element of the app’s identity. We’ve done this by incorporating a more confident expression of Facebook’s core blue color that is built to be more visually accessible in our app and provides stronger contrast for the “f” to stand apart.

Using our custom typeface, Facebook Sans, we redesigned the wordmark and logo to create a consistent treatment and improve overall legibility across Facebook. Similar to the changes to the logo symbol, these refinements allowed us to build upon the heritage of our identity, while creating a stronger relationship between how the wordmark pairs with the rest of the typeface.

A dynamic color range

In addition to the logo, we also developed a new color palette. We crafted a new set of hues, tones and contrast ratios that felt unique to the Facebook brand and are optimized for accessibility. Blue, unsurprisingly, remains the foundational color, and pairs with our expanded spectrum to create stronger distinction for Facebook in marketing and when speaking to people in the app. The deep tonal range of secondary blues allows for flexibility while providing balance as a single expression of our brand identity.

Refining our Reactions

Reactions are a visual way for people to respond to a post, comment or story, and are also a meaningful way for people to express themselves as they interact with what they discover on Facebook.

The updates to Reactions are testing and will be rolled out in the coming months.

Through our expanded color palette, we were able to evoke more dimensionality and emotion in Reactions. We adjusted colors to meet color accessibility guidance so that our iconography is legible at any size, flexible enough for different needs and easy for people to interact with. Leaving no pixel unturned, we rebuilt the entire iconography system so that it scales with a wide range of expressions across each moment within the app.

From functional to expressive, our entire iconography system was redesigned to scale for different uses.

Bringing the design system to life in the app

This multidisciplinary effort was a culmination of teams working together to visualize Facebook. Through this design system, we are able to bring our brand to life through the app, enabling dynamic and effortless exploration.

This initial release of design updates to the app includes our redesigned logo and wordmark, as well as an updated color palette, Reactions, typography and iconography — with more updates to be rolled out in the future. All of these refinements will create a more consistent, personal and seamless experience for the billions of people who interact with Facebook daily — to explore, connect and share with each other.

A modernized design language that is simpler, easier and more dynamic, created specifically with a global audience in mind.

Looking towards tomorrow

We will continue to evolve Facebook’s design to meet people’s needs, making it easier to explore and connect around their interests. Our focus remains on creating people-first experiences to help others make progress on the things that matter most to them.

Design at Meta is for everyone who touches user experience and design.

Whether you’re a product designer, writer, creative strategist, researcher, project manager, team leader or all-around systems-thinker, there’s something here for you.


Design at Meta is a window into the unique expertise and perspectives of the multidisciplinary teams who are building the future of digital connection and bringing the world closer together.

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