It's good you clarified that, because I know black males are never insensitive.
I tease. But I do see the value of being mindful of cultural differences in companies that employ a diverse workforce. No, it has nothing to do with the taste of the orange juice, but understanding where your colleagues are coming from is still productive. The typical employee probably is unaware of cultural differences that might come up with colleagues from cultures they're unfamiliar with. I'm thinking mainly here of cultures that have different values or practices from the dominant culture in the company, like a devout Muslim or Orthodox Jew working for a secular American company.
Though, yes, people who build their career on diversity tend to go a bit further than just preventing stuff getting lost in translation across cultural divides, probably for similar reasons to why brands can't just be left alone.
Diversity isn’t about the color of one’s skin, it’s about what that means when embedded in Western society.
What you seem to be looking for is not a brand but a label or a certification perhaps ?
If IKEA or Apple suddenly changed their aesthetic, they are probably going to be pushing out the same products... just with different packaging. The companies themselves remain the same as they were. People will have different feelings, depending on their reaction and how the branding people message this change, but ultimately the move is pointless as everything continues as before.
For an extreme example, look at the Blackwaters or Facebooks of the world.
Apple has a very strong brand, and if tomorrow they switched their logo and brand image to a cursive Ford style blue one it would need a strong justification behind it, a ton of employees would see such a change in a very negative way, and possibility think long and hard about their career path going from there, as the management might have lost their way.
Or the other way: when “Apple Computers” became “Apple” it wasn’t some random surface level change, but a reflection of how the company had deeply changed focus compared to its earlier days.
Branding and culture are rarely decoupled, and if any of those are strong enough they’ll change in lockstep.
PS: on brand and logo “refreshes”, like Peugeot moving to more a stylized lion, while those are arguably cosmetic, there is the same philosophy applied to the worker pool with “new blood” introduced to the company and processes and manufacturing moving along. In a way, the same thing is happening below and above the surface.
It's probably inevitable. We've reached peak abbreviation and minimization anyway.
Apple is defined by negative space. They are not complicated. They are not the same as everyone else. They are not spying on you(Or so some claim).
All the apple fans I know talk about simplicity and privacy more than any specific feature, and a lot of them appreciate simple things in all areas of life.
Changing the logo might really mess with the sense of simple quality.
- System 1,2,3,4,5,6,7
- Mac OS 8
- Mac OS 9
- Mac OS X
And it remained at "X" for about 16 years, with sometimes substantial releases being distinguished just by a big cat name or a decimal point. Arguably the "X" part stopped being part of the versioning, and simply became part of the brand but it was definitely redundant and "mac oh-ess-ex" is at best a bit clunky to say.
It certainly wasn't necessary, but I can at least understand why they'd want to do it.
macOS also aligns with capitalization of iOS, which is the more widespread brand.
What really strikes me is the lack of customer centricity in all this. Do they want the change? Do they think the existing look is outdated? Do they like the old look? Pah. Who cares! I have a legacy to cement and a bonus to secure!
(Besides the usual MBA word-vomit mumbo jumbo like 'modern utility', but we all know those are just made up excuses)
Maybe a brand should just be... a brand. A brand isn't your friend, it isn't human, it isn't alive, and it most certainly only exists to take your money and put it in their account -- and, in tech, more often than not through some rent-seeking subscription model because nobody likes us actually owning anything anymore.