After a decade of minimal, monochrome, sans-serif everything, brand identities are warming up. But is it genuine, or just another trend cycle?
Something shifted.
Scroll through the big rebrands of the past 18 months and you'll notice it. Logos are loosening up. Typefaces are rounder. Colour palettes are brighter. Identities that would have been described as "corporate" two years ago now look like they're actively trying to make you feel something.
And some of them are literally smiling at you...
The GF Smith rebrand is the one to study.
GF Smith's rebrand by Templo is probably the best example of this shift. The previous identity, designed by MadeThought in 2014, was elegant and restrained. Heritage-driven. Very much of its time.
The new one is a smiley face.
Not metaphorically. The letterforms of "GF Smith" have been reworked into eyes and a grin. The bespoke typeface, GF Smith Homie by Blaze Type, is chunky and rounded where the old one was pencil-thin. The colour palette draws directly from their Colorplan paper collection, so instead of a controlled set of two or three brand colours, the whole identity is drenched in every shade they make. Even the swatch book has been redesigned as a carabiner you clip to your bag.
It's a bold move for a 140-year-old paper company. And it works because it's not random. There's a strategic reason behind the warmth: GF Smith's core UK market has been shrinking since 2016. The designers most familiar with their papers are approaching retirement. They need to connect with a younger creative generation, and the old identity, however respected, wasn't doing that job.
As their brand director Ben Watkinson put it, the previous identity was "right for the time" but "no longer reflected who we were as an organisation or as people." That's an honest assessment. And the solution wasn't to inch forward carefully. It was to commit fully to personality.
Cash App quietly rolled out a set of brand guidelines in 2025 that made it feel less like a banking app and more like a design-led lifestyle brand. Playful motion elements, expressive graphics, bold colour. Fast Company called it one of the most undersung branding moves of the year.
Eventbrite's rebrand introduced "The Path", an abstract logo that adapts and shifts depending on the community it's speaking to. Foodies get food textures. Music fans get instruments. It's customisable, energetic, and deliberately imperfect.
Even Amazon's refresh by Koto, while far more subtle, nudged the smile-arrow logo towards feeling like an actual smile rather than an A-to-Z shipping metaphor. The serif on the first "a" was removed. The orange got warmer. Small changes, but all in the same direction.
There are a few things converging.
AI made everything look the same. When anyone can generate a clean, geometric, sans-serif logo in thirty seconds, clean geometric sans-serif logos stop meaning anything. The backlash against AI-polished perfection is driving brands towards visible human craft, imperfection, and personality. Canva's 2026 design trends report found that 80% of creators said this is "the year we regain creative control." Whether that's true or aspirational, the sentiment is real.
The loneliness economy. This sounds dramatic, but Creative Bloq quoted John Paolini from Sullivan describing a "deeper systemic and cultural shift born from an epidemic of loneliness, polarisation, AI acceleration and a world that increasingly doesn't make sense." Brands that feel warm and human are responding to a genuine emotional gap. People want things that feel like they were made by people.
Minimalism ran its course. We had a solid decade of brands stripping back to geometric wordmarks and muted palettes. It worked for a while. Then everyone did it, and the result was what one writer called "the rise of safe, forgettable branding." If your logo looks exactly like every other logo in your category, you haven't achieved minimalism. You've achieved invisibility.
Here's where it gets interesting. Not every brand should be smiling.
GF Smith's rebrand works because the warmth is connected to a genuine business need and a real brand personality. They're a company that runs an employee benefit trust, says yes to factory tours, and genuinely cares about creative communities. The smiley face isn't a gimmick. It's them.
But we've already seen brands adopt "friendly" aesthetics without the substance to back it up. Rounded typefaces and pastel palettes on a brand that treats its customers badly is just lipstick. Worse, it's dishonest.
The question isn't "should our logo be friendlier?" It's "does our brand actually have warmth to express?"
If the answer is yes, then a visual identity that communicates that warmth is smart strategy, not trend-chasing.
If the answer is no, a friendly logo will just highlight the gap.
We think the shift towards warmer, more expressive brand identities is a correction, not a trend. The sans-serif monoculture of the 2010s was an overcorrection towards neutrality. What we're seeing now is brands remembering that identity design is supposed to make people feel something.
The best work in this space, GF Smith, Cash App, Eventbrite, is doing it with strategic intent. The logo smiles because the brand smiles. The colours are bright because the product is joyful. The type is rounded because the company genuinely wants to feel approachable. It's design reflecting truth, not fashion.
The brands that just stick a rounded sans-serif on their business cards because it's "on trend" will look dated in eighteen months. The ones that genuinely commit to personality will build something that lasts.
That's always how it works. Trends come and go. Character sticks.
