Warner Bros. Records Rebrands as Warner Records
By Jem Aswad, Senior Music Editor
May 28, 2019



Some 61 years after the founding of Warner Bros. Records, the label is being rebranded as Warner Records across the globe — yes, Warner Bros. Records is now Warner Records. The new logo appears above; the revamped website launched a few minutes ago.

According to the announcement, “This marks the latest step in the company’s evolution, following Aaron Bay-Schuck joining as U.S. Co-Chairman & CEO in October 2018, Tom Corson being appointed U.S. Co-Chairman & COO in January 2018, and Phil Christie being named President of the UK label in 2016. The name change also follows the U.S. company’s recent move to a new, state-of-the-art headquarters in downtown LA’s Arts District.”

The move is taking place for both legal and imaging reasons. The announcement notes that when Warner Music Group was sold by Time Warner in 2004 to a group of investors led by Edgar Bronfman Jr., it was agreed that Warner Bros. Records, which was founded in 1958 as a division of Warner Bros. Pictures, would continue to use the Warner Bros. name and logo for 15 years. The rebranding also allows the company, which was acquired by Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries in 2011 and has undergone dramatic changes in leadership and artist roster over the past couple of years, to make a fresh start. Warner Music’s publishing division, Warner Chappell, recently underwent a less dramatic rebranding, with a new logo and punctuation change (removing the slash between the two names).

The announcement describes the new logo’s “artful simplicity and impactful typography that are ideally suited to the digital world. The circular icon – suggesting a record, a sun, and a globe – is a nod to the label’s past, present, and future. The openness of the design gives it the flexibility to embrace all Warner Records artists and all genres of music around the world.”

“For the first time in the label’s history, we’ve had the opportunity to create a distinct, modern identity entirely of our own,” said Corson and Bay-Schuck. “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. We have a growing roster of world-class artists, a rejuvenated team, and an incredible new location. It’s a new day for Warner Records, an iconic label that was born in the California sun, and is at home everywhere on earth.”

“We’re signing and developing the next generation of British artists to move global culture, so 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.”

The new Warner Records brand identity and logo were developed in partnership with Emily Oberman and her team at the design studio Pentagram.

Yes, what looks like a setting sun kind of creeps me out.

They probably intended it the other way - a rising sun.