Renault logo redesign: compare the new and previous designs

What the Renault logo redesign is

The mark in question is Renault’s diamond, or lozenge. In 2021 the company issued a new brand identity that replaced the previous three-dimensional yellow diamond—used in communications through the late 2010s—with a flat, geometric yellow diamond and a newly drawn wordmark. The emblem concept remains the diamond; the redesign changes how that diamond is built, coloured, paired with type and prepared as a production asset.

Three things sit in the same family and are easy to mix up. The 2021 identity is a two-dimensional brand mark for screens, print and signage. The badge on a vehicle is a physical, sculpted object that interprets the diamond for that model year. Older graphic diamonds, including the angular 1972 mark often cited as a reference, belong to the same lineage. This comparison treats the 2021 brand diamond and the immediately previous three-dimensional yellow diamond as the current and previous pair.

Differences that separate the two designs

The notes below compare those two publicly issued marks in ordinary brand-viewing conditions: solid backgrounds, typical diamond-plus-name lockups, sizes at which a logo is meant to be read. Surface, silhouette and type are observable from those presentations. Claims about print, screen or embroidery performance are design reasoning from that construction; they are untested here. Exact path geometry, spot colours and licence terms are unverified without official artwork and guidelines.

Criterion	Previous diamond (through 2021)	2021 diamond
Geometry	Bevelled lozenge with implied thickness; a yellow inner plane set inside a metallic frame	Flat lozenge built from hard-edged planes; the diamond reads as a graphic fold
Depth	Highlights, shadows and gradients that simulate machined metal and volume	Shape carried by silhouette and internal angles, with little modelled light
Colour	Yellow field framed in silver or grey metal; name typically grey	Solid yellow diamond as the main colour event; name in black, white or yellow on the ground
Typography	Conventional automotive sans-serif, relatively open tracking	Custom geometric sans-serif with tighter, more constructed letterforms
Lockup	Diamond as object, name as supporting caption	Diamond and name as equal graphic partners; the yellow mark also stands alone
Reproduction	Depends on gradients and specular rim detail	Depends on a few large shapes and a limited fill

Geometry and surface

The older mark is drawn as a physical diamond: a yellow core, a raised rim, and lighting that makes the object look chrome-edged and volumetric. That reading is strongest at medium and large sizes on screen or in glossy print, where the bevel and highlight still resolve. The 2021 mark is drawn as a diagram of a diamond: an outer contour plus internal facets. Those facets give a sense of fold and direction without a depicted light source, and they echo the sharper 1972 graphic lozenge that Renault has presented as a heritage reference. The new outline is more regular and more angular; the old outline is softened by the metallic rim and by the way highlights eat into the corners.

Colour

Colour roles switch between the two systems. On the previous mark, yellow is a fill inside a metallic object, so grey and silver carry as much identity as yellow. In the 2021 system, yellow is the identity colour and black is the usual ground. The diamond appears as a yellow solid, a yellow line, or a dark cut-out, depending on the background. That pairing is the intended high-contrast reading in brand presentations. Official swatches—spot colour, RGB, hex or digital tokens—are a gap in this comparison and should be taken from current brand artwork rather than sampled from a screenshot.

Wordmark, spacing and lockup

The name change is as large as the diamond change. The previous wordmark behaves like a caption under a rendered object: quieter, greyer, and more loosely tracked. The 2021 letters are drawn to sit with the angular diamond—more geometric, more even in stroke, and tight enough to lock up as one unit. Alignment of the name to the diamond’s width, and the clear space around that pair, are part of the identity. Treating the diamond as clip-art and restyling the letters breaks the lockup even when the lozenge itself is recognisable.

Scalability and asset editability

A gradient-heavy three-dimensional diamond sheds rim detail and metallic cues as it shrinks, reverses, or drops to one colour. A flat faceted diamond keeps a readable silhouette further into those conditions because the identity lives in contour and a few internal cuts. That is the expected result of removing modelled light. It has not been measured here against a matrix of sizes, substrates, stitch counts or file formats.

Editability follows the same split. The previous mark is slow to redraw because the metal is usually a raster effect or a dense stack of gradients. The 2021 mark is a candidate for simple vector construction: closed shapes, a short palette, no required highlights. A file named as SVG or EPS still needs inspection; the extension does not prove clean geometry, faithful proportions or permission to reuse the mark. Official artwork and usage rights remain a separate check from identifying the era.

Which version to use

Pick by job and by date, then confirm artwork. Novelty of the 2021 system is a poor sole criterion; matching the communications era and the production method is the useful test.

• Current brand, digital UI, print and signage that must match present Renault communications: the 2021 flat diamond and its wordmark.
• Historical, archival or restoration work tied to mid-to-late 2010s vehicles and materials: the previous three-dimensional yellow diamond.
• One-colour, small-size, embroidery, wayfinding and icon use: start from the 2021 silhouette, using official single-colour artwork if it exists.
• Photoreal vehicle visualisation for a specific model year: match that year’s physical badge, which can differ from either print logo.
• Any public-facing or commercial reproduction: obtain current official files and permission. Identifying the redesign is a separate step from having the right to use it.

Clear-space rules, minimum sizes, approved colour tokens and master-file structure live in Renault’s brand guidelines and are unverified in this article. Those specifications, plus a licence check, are the practical next step once the era of the diamond is settled.