{"id":179456,"date":"2025-12-07T14:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T14:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/179456\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T14:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T14:59:09","slug":"the-new-cnbc-logo-is-already-controversial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/179456\/","title":{"rendered":"The new CNBC logo is already controversial"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ditched Cracker Barrel rebrand <\/a>will surely be remembered as 2025’s most controversial logo design, but the US financial news network CNBC is making a late bid for the title. It’s revealed that the classic peacock design that’s also used in the NBC logo will be dropped in favour of a more minismalist wordmark.<\/p>\n

The new logo was inspired by the brand’s history, while an arrow motif is intended to point up and forward, a lot of people are struggling to understand the design decisions (see our pick of the best logos<\/a> for designs that work).<\/p>\n

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The fate of the CNBC peacock logo is the tale of a death foretold. The channel can no longer use the iconic bird because its current owner NBCUniversal, is spinning this and a bunch of other assets off into a new company called Versant, which will be owned by Comcast shareholders (you’re keeping up, right?).<\/p>\n

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The manoeuvre already claimed one branding and graphic design victim earlier in the year when MSNBC was rebranded as MS NOW<\/a>, supposedly standing for My Source News Opinion World.<\/p>\n

In CNBC’s case, it gets to keep its name, but will have a new logo from 15 December. K.C. Sullivan, the President of CNBC, has described the design as \u201ca symbol of the direction where we\u2019re headed and the exciting new chapter we\u2019re headed into.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fused N and B in the centre are intended as a reference to the original CNBC logo from 1989, when it was launched as a joint venture between NBC \u2013 part of General Electric at the time \u2013 and Cablevision (you are keeping up, right?).<\/p>\n

The blue upward arrow between the fused letters is intended to reflect the ‘square motion theory ‘ of the network\u2019s on-air design language, which uses the arrow as a repeating symbol and to form the box holding the CNBC logo. The arrow’s also intended to reflect the brand’s expertise in financial news, representing stock prices climbing.<\/p>\n

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That’s the idea. But viewers and designers have other interpretations. \u201cLooks like a sinking ship with a blue sail, and the little cleft between the N and B provides extra emphasis of the ship sinking,\u201d one person writes on Reddit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Others think the notch on the bottom between the N and the B and the way the triangle pops out makes the visual language feel \u201cfinicky and disjointed\u201d.<\/p>\n

One designer has a more cutting analysis seeing it as the kind of logo that appears when client\u2019s team can’t agree on anything and good idea has been shot down.<\/p>\n

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\u201dEventually you hit that point where the path of least resistance becomes the only path left. After months of deliberation fatigue, everyone convinces themselves they adore it: “OMG, the team and I decided last night that we love it, it\u2019s ‘just perfect,’\u201d and that the blue triangle “really just pulls the whole thing together, you have such an EYE, it really pops!!”<\/p>\n

\u201cThe result is a logo like this: a boxed-in, oddly proportioned, personality-free form where Pathfinder meets Boolean subtraction, and a supposedly clever N-stem gets repurposed into the spine of a B, complete with an X-Acto-knife wedge for emphasis. I\u2019m sure everyone involved was simply relieved to call it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inevitably, some are suggesting that the logo is another victim of the trend to minimalism in logo design. Others complain that it has all the personality of a bank or that it looks like an in-flight news programme for Delta Airlines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe old logo broadcasted color and perspective. This one broadcasts hierarchy. When a news brand trades a living symbol for a geometric control glyph, it tells you everything about where the narrative is headed,\u201d one person reckons writing on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some suggest that logo appears to read ‘CABC’ rather than ‘CNBC’. Others are already comparing it to some of the most controversial logo designs of recent years, including rebrands what were dropped. \u201cReminds me of the GAP logo redesign disaster, but they had the good sense to revoke it within a few hours,\u201d one person writes on X<\/a>. \u201cCracker Barrel vibes,\u201d another person says. Ouch!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ditched Cracker Barrel rebrand will surely be remembered as 2025’s most controversial logo design, but the US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-179456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}