Red Hat Inc. is retiring its legendary "Shadowman" logo after nearly 20 years as it nears the closing of its proposed $34 billion acquisition by IBM Corp.
Out of the shadows and about to be acquired by IBM, he shocked the technology world when he announced plans to buy Red Hat late last year in what will be his biggest acquisition.
The acquisition will be finalized later this year , and while IBM intends to maintain Red Hat as a separate business entity, many analysts believe it should give the company a better chance of competing with rivals such as Amazon Web Services Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Google LLC.
Red Hat boasts new logo after two decades
The enterprise software company debuted its new logo this week , saying that six of its employees, including a senior executive, already have it tattooed on their bodies.
They also comment that getting a Red Hat logo tattoo is not an unusual part of the culture of the open source software company. In fact, there are 17 employees who sport tattoos of the original logo.
The revamped logo suggests that Red Hat is looking to update its image as it prepares for the next stage of its journey.
In a blog post, Tim Yeaton, Red Hat's executive vice president of corporate marketing , said that one of the reasons for the change is that most people didn't know what the old Shadowman was supposed to stand for.
He is supposed to be some kind of heroic spy, but the company's research showed that, in fact, many people considered him "secretive, sinister, or cunning."
"Brand's team and I were heartbroken," Yeaton wrote. "These words could not have been further from my deeply held impressions of Red Hat, which I had formed long before joining the company."
The old "Shadowman" logo was too "sinister," Red Hat said.
And so, Red Hat, as one of the world's leading open-source software companies, decided to launch what it called the "Open Brand Project," which effectively opens up the design of the new logo to its employees.
Open Brand Project, in search of the new design
The Open Brand Project led to the creation of the "Tattoo Team ," which was a committee of Red Hat employees who had already tattooed the old logo on their bodies and were tasked with creating a new design.
“The new logo reflects Red Hat's evolution from a 'skinny boot' in data centers with boxed copies of a Linux-based operating system, to the world's leading provider of open source solutions for enterprise hybrid cloud environments.
With the new logo, "we've really stepped out of the shadows," Yeaton said.
Consuelo Madrigal, Red Hat's brand manager in Latin America, is one of the employees who got a tattoo of the new logo.
She says she had never been a "tattoo crazy person," but decided to get the new Red Hat logo tattooed after participating in the Open Brand Project, which developed the logo, for two years.
"Culturally, this is not just the logo for us Red Hatters," Madrigal said. “It's our culture, it's our way of doing things, and I learned a lot from that, and I loved it throughout the trip. It is a reminder of what we can do when we try new things.
Finally, the result, what could happen if we all do it together. I am happy with everything that is happening.
Yeaton wants people who have never heard of Red Hat to instantly get an idea of ​​what the company is about when they see the new logo: dynamic, reliable, innovative, open.
The new Red Hat logo has a softer vibe, more in keeping with its modern persona and more effective in communication.