Red Hat unveils new logo that’s all about the hat — and not the Shadowman underneath it
Shadowman is dead. Long live Shadowman.
After more than 20 years as Raleigh-based Red Hat’s main logo, the “Shadowman” will no longer be the tech company’s image bearer.
On Wednesday, the company unveiled a sleeker and, in its words, more modern symbol — one absent the 1990s-era fedora-wearing man.
In his place remains only the fedora.
The change comes after nearly two years of internal planning and deliberating on how Red Hat’s symbol, designed before the need for logos that work on smart phones, could evolve to attract new customers in the future.
The final blow for Shadowman’s reign — which started back in 1996 — was a survey that asked people’s opinions of the old logo, said Tim Yeaton, head of corporate marketing for Red Hat.
“We came to the conclusion of thinking about some evolutionary changes (to the logo) and while we were at it, we surveyed people that know us and what their impression is,” Yeaton said in a phone interview. “What came back was shocking. It was words like sinister and sneaky, and that was the opposite of how we think of ourselves.”
On one hand, the company shouldn’t have been surprised, Yeaton admitted. The word “shadowy” is almost in the name of the logo’s nickname. But the logo dates back to when Red Hat was a rebellious software startup and not one of the biggest players in cloud-computing services.
“Employees fell in love with the mark but they saw it for how we saw it and not how others perceived it,” Yeaton said, noting many employees have the logo tattooed on their bodies. “It’s fair to say we were shocked but not surprised” by the survey results.
Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst concurred with that sentiment.
“Red Hat, 20 years ago when we picked this brand, was this subversive company coming into the data center bottom up,” Whitehurst said in an interview at the logo’s reveal. “We are now ubiquitous, and it’s not that we don’t have a ton of challenges, but it’s: ‘How do we make this the default choice, how do we make this the platform where innovation happens?’
“Having a shadowy figure probably doesn’t convey the open, transparent message we are trying to send out.”
The new logo was chosen after more than a year of meetings and suggestions from internal committees. It was designed by the company’s branding team, and Paula Scher, a New York-based partner at the design firm Pentagram, consulted with the company.
“We see it as a signal to the market and customers that we serve that this is a modern company,” Yeaton said of the end result.
One thing that came up throughout the re-branding process was the fact that most people inside and outside of the company identified with the red fedora more than the man wearing the fedora.
However, before settling on the fedora, the company also considered more than 40 other hats, including a pork pie hat, Yeaton said.
Ditching Shadowman isn’t the only big change happening within the walls of Red Hat tower at the moment.
Last year, IBM announced it would be acquiring Red Hat for $34 billion, making it the biggest-ever acquisition for New York-based IBM, and one that analysts said should help the computer giant compete with younger tech companies, like Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
IBM, which has a campus in Research Triangle Park, says it intends to keep Red Hat an independent entity and keep it in its downtown Raleigh tower. The company has more than 2,000 employees at its headquarters tower, making it one of Raleigh’s largest employers.
But with questions remaining about how the two distinct cultures will mix once the deal closes later this year, Whitehurst noted that the decision to change the logo was done long before the deal was struck and that IBM had no input on any change to the logo.
“We were in the process of doing this when the IBM merger came up, so this is certainly demonstrating that it is business as usual” at Red Hat, Whitehurst said. “We did this independently — we showed it to them but we didn’t make any changes — and they were supportive of it. ... If it made sense before the deal, then it makes sense after because we are independent.”
An internal survey done at Red Hat found that around 20% of employees had reservations about ditching the Shadowman logo and many of those reservations were fears the logo change was a sign the company was moving past its foundational roots.
“That was the question: Does this mean that we don’t retain the Shadowman ethos?” said Yeaton. “We will never move from the Shadowman ethos ... which is about open, engaging meritocracy.”
In the spirit of Red Hat’s open-source philosophy, the font the company will use in its new logo is going to be open-source, meaning it will be freely available for other usages.
Regardless of what happens once the deal with IBM is confirmed, at least some employees are enthusiastic about the new logo.
Already six Red Hatters have already committed to getting the new logo tattooed on them, Red Hat spokeswoman Allison Showalter said.
Colby Hoke, a manager for Red Hat’s content team, said the marketing team began asking around to see if anyone was interested in a free tattoo of the new logo. After working at the company for nearly 13 years, he decided to go for it.
“I always loved the old logo, and I wasn’t unsure of the new one, but once I saw it on things I loved it,” Hoke said. “It’s so much cleaner.”
Michael Chadwick, who does digital marketing at Red Hat, also got a tattoo of the new logo — despite the fact he has only worked there for a few months. He said he wanted to be one of the original members of the new “tat pack.”
“I have 16 tattoos, and they are meaningful to me. I have a bitcoin tattoo on my chest because I am a big believer in that technology,” he said. “And I am a big believer in the open-source mission of Red Hat.”
This story was originally published May 1, 2019 at 9:00 AM.
