Uber rebrands itself with a new logo

Uber just gave itself a new look. The popular car service app rebranded itself Tuesday when it unveiled a new logo, dispensing with the recognizable "U" against a black background, and replacing it with a backwards "C" with a square inside it called a "bit."

In a blog post, Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick said as the company grew from a car service that serviced "100 friends in San Francisco" into a "transportation network" that extends throughout 400 cities in 68 countries, it needed a new look to encapsulate its changing mission.

Kalanick says the company now aspires "to make transportation as reliable as running water, everywhere and for everyone." Along the way, it has won millions of enthusiastic users, annoyed some with surge pricing, and also antagonized many others by elbowing out competition and trying to undercut established taxi businesses.

While the old Uber app logo was black and white -- "somewhat distant and cold," Kalanick admitted -- the new branding adds a bit of color and pattern.

"The team has spent months researching architecture, textiles, scenery, art, fashion, people and more to come up with authentic identities for the countries where Uber operates," he wrote.

Early reviews on Twitter were mixed.

The only thing I can't see in the logo is what I need to see "U" for Uber. https://t.co/U2yzlhO7rN

— Om Malik (@om) February 2, 2016

Loving the new @uber branding! Well done! pic.twitter.com/fZaOdXVbtE

— jason (@Jason) February 2, 2016

unsurprisingly, uber has not updated its android app yet, but that's ok bc the animations would prolly cripple most android phones anyways

— dan seifert (@dcseifert) February 2, 2016
    In:
  • Uber
Brian Mastroianni

Brian Mastroianni covers science and technology for CBSNews.com

Twitter

Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.