THE FINAL STEP IN REBRANDING WARNER

Warner Bros. Records is being rebranded as Warner Records with a new circular icon logo that suggests a record, a sun or a globe. Label staff responded with cheers and applause when it was unveiled inhouse on Thursday.

“For the first time in the label’s history, we’ve had the opportunity to create a distinct, modern identity entirely of our own,” U.S. Co-Chairman & COO Tom Corson and as U.S. Co-Chairman & CEO Aaron Bay-Schuck said in a joint statement. “The timing couldn’t be better, since we all feel the label is at a moment of reinvention that builds on our legacy, while moving into a future driven by fearlessness and creativity.”

Combined with the move to downtown L.A., the logo and name change are the last steps in the full separation from the movie studio that started the label 61 years ago.

The new Warner Records brand identity and logo were developed in partnership with Emily Oberman and her team at Pentagram, the design studio that has done music projects for The Rolling Stones, The National and others.

Warner Bros. Records was founded in March 1958 as an arm of Warner Bros. Pictures. They initially used the “shield” logo and in the 1970s went with an image of a tree-lined street, presumably in Burbank.

When Time Warner sold Warner Music Group in 2004, the company was allowed to use the name Warner Bros. Records and the logo for 15 years.

“We wanted the Warner Records brand to have the power and freedom to mean different things to different people around the world,” said Christie. “A new logo isn’t meaningful on its own, and our label will always be defined by the originality of our artists, our music, and our people.”

We’ll never call it the Bunny ever again.