By Yusuf Danjuma Yunusa

The Jaiz Bank rebranding of its logo has sparked series of debates in the past few days among professionals. Most engaging of all the discourse was that of Aliyu Jalal, a communication specialist and Safwan Idris, a brand designer.

Safwan Idris, from his years of experience as a brand designer, argued that the new choice of design by the bank is below par, and even posited that the management could be sued for a copyright violation owing to the fact that a flip of the bank’s new logo design resembles that of Bixby Samsung. Not only that, he also critiqued the use of lowercase for the letter ‘j’ which starts the bank’s name, Jaiz. Safwan, in his criticism, added that the rebranding has got too much colors on the logo which has made it look unfit for such an establishment.

Aliyu Jalal on the other hand, while responding to Safwan’s criticisms, expressed shock as to why such an acclaimed brand designer would be ignorant of things that he is to know even better. In his rebuttal, Aliyu highlighted that the adoption of the lowercase instead of the conventional uppercase which many brands are used to is a step toward solidifying their ideology of operating differently in the banking industry.

The communication specialist went further to juxtapose brands like adidas, spotify, reddit, tajbank, paypal, and others that have adopted the same lowercase; citing reasons for such an adoption to be the fact that it looks more aesthetically appealing, softer, friendlier, and less rigid.

Furthermore, Aliyu countered the designer’s claim that the new logo of the bank is a “flipped” version of Samsung’s Bixby; reiterating that such claim is weak. He justified his position by sharing that what it’s considered a legal breach in Corporate Law is a “near-identical copying”, stressing that “mere resemblance is not an issue.”

He buttressed further that logos are symbols, and that symbols are drawn from shared ideas in which a bit of research would have him find out that there are “resemblance for almost every logo in the world.”

Responding to the “too much color” criticism by the designer, Aliyu pointed out that big brands like Google and Microsoft are using four different colors whereas the antagonized bank adopted only three which, by all means, still serve the simplicity purpose as expected.

Not relenting, Safwan held a space on the X app(formerly Twitter) yesterday evening on Thursday with the topic: Logo Design Process: Avoiding Copyright Breach and IP Lawsuit, where he expantiated more on his claims about the rebranding of Jaiz Bank.

The brand designer, once again, faulted the person whom the bank contracted for the job, remarking that no professional designer would come up with a word mark logo that’s in lowercase with the ‘j’ having the dot that it originally has. He emphatically conveyed that even though the person wish to use the word mark in lowercase, the ‘j’ should not have appeared with the dot on it.

Secondly, he argued that rebranding is not always about changing everything that a brand is already known with; that such move is risky as customers have known the brand with certain features already. Safwan noted that since Jaiz Bank, which is an Islamic bank, had adopted green which is globally recognized among Islamic countries as the favorite color of Islam; and that customers have acquainted themselves with already, it was unnecessary for the bank to replace that with yellow which, according to him, means nothing deducing from their unveiling ceremony clip that he watched online.

Lastly, he remarked that Jaiz Bank is known for its unique way of banking, hence, that should have made the designer to have avoided coming up with any logo that is in existence already; and which wouldn’t have made people debate on whether it resembles the Samsung Bixby or not.

Safwan ended the space with the mentioning of some tenets of trade mark, how copyright really works, and how it could be avoided.

Moreover, a staff of this very Jaiz Bank, Ameer Lukman Haruna, in his reaction to the online debate, shared that though he has received and seen quite a number of logo proposal for the bank, the management has reasons to stick to what it has now, while urging the youths to continue in their show of talents; that it might actually inspire the bank’s future decision to rebrand again if such opportunity arises. He also acknowledged the fact that the debate, being an intellectual discourse, is a way to keep the bank visible and relevant.

Are you a Jaiz Bank customer? If yes, what’s your take on the issue: should the bank stick to its current design or it should go back to the old one? Let’s know your thoughts!