Uncle Ben’s New Logo: A Before-and-After Brand Evaluation
A practical before-and-after evaluation of the Uncle Ben’s to Ben’s Original logo change, covering vector artwork, file structure and usage rights.
Contents
What logo is under discussion
The subject is the retirement of the Uncle Ben’s portrait lockup and its replacement by the Ben’s Original wordmark. In 2020, Mars announced that the rice brand would drop the “Uncle Ben” character portrait and continue under a new name, Ben’s Original. The practical question for anyone evaluating, finding or preparing vector logo artwork is therefore not a minor redraw of the old face. It is a change of brand name, of primary mark and of how the identity is built as a file.
That distinction matters for production. The former lockup was a portrait-led mark with supporting lettering. The current identity is a type-led lockup. Those two structures behave differently when you scale them, convert them to one colour, embroider them, or ask whether a given file contains editable vector paths rather than a raster preview inside a vector wrapper.
Before: the Uncle Ben’s portrait lockup
The former identity centred on a head-and-shoulders portrait of an elderly Black man in a bow tie, presented as the character “Uncle Ben,” with the Uncle Ben’s wordmark beside or below the image. The face was the distinctive element. Packaging and advertising used that portrait for decades, so the public recognised the brand by the character as much as by the lettering.
From an artwork-structure point of view, portrait lockups are often mixed media even when they are labelled as logo files. A circular crop of a painted or photographic face may sit as an embedded raster image inside an EPS, PDF or SVG, with only the wordmark and holding shape drawn as paths. A fully illustrated version can be true vector, but it is still a high-detail drawing: many nodes, tonal hatching or blends, and a likeness that collapses at small sizes. Neither condition can be inferred from a filename or extension. Opening the file and inspecting objects, image embeds and path counts is the only way to know.
The old mark was also hard on a production checklist that simple geometry handles easily. A recognisable face needs resolution at small sizes, struggles in one-colour and low-contrast uses, and is a poor candidate for embroidery, debossing or favicon crops. The bow tie and collar read as extra detail rather than as a reduceable symbol. Editorial judgment, not a lab measurement: the portrait was a brand asset with high recognition and low flexibility as vector master art.
After: the Ben’s Original wordmark
The new identity removes the portrait and the “Uncle” honorific. The brand name on pack and in the logo is Ben’s Original. Public rollout followed the 2020 announcement, with the wordmark taking the role the face previously held. Orange and gold tones familiar from the older packaging still appear in many product executions; this brief does not include official colour formulas, so those values should be taken from current brand masters rather than guessed from photographs.
A type-led lockup is the more typical candidate for clean vector delivery. Letterforms can be outlined as closed paths, scaled without a resolution floor, and converted to a single colour with less loss of identity than a face. Spacing, weight and the apostrophe in Ben’s become the design-critical details. If the supplied file still contains live text, the typeface licence is a separate permission from the trademark licence. If the letters are outlined, the file is usually safer to place in print and motion pipelines, and harder to recast as a new typesetting.
The redesign also changes what “using the logo” means in practice. Reproducing the old portrait is reproducing a likeness that the owner has withdrawn from the current brand system. Reproducing Ben’s Original is reproducing a current wordmark. Both remain trademarks. The new artwork does not make unofficial redraws, icon packs or “free SVG” versions into authorised masters.
Before-and-after comparison
| Aspect | Former Uncle Ben’s lockup | Ben’s Original lockup |
| Primary identifier | Portrait of the Uncle Ben character plus wordmark | Ben’s Original wordmark; portrait withdrawn |
| Artwork type you should expect | Often mixed: raster or complex illustration plus type | Typically outlined lettering; confirm in the file |
| Small-size behaviour | Face and bow tie lose likeness quickly | Depends on weight, tracking and the apostrophe |
| One-colour and utility use | Poor without a custom simplification | More workable if paths are clean and closed |
| Brand-system role | Character as the mark | Name as the mark |
| Rights position | Withdrawn current identity; still a trademarked historical asset | Current trademarked identity of the rice brand |
How to treat a file that claims to be the vector logo
Vector artwork, an embedded raster and a raster preview are different objects. A download labelled SVG, EPS, PDF or AI may still contain a flattened image of the portrait or of the wordmark. Tracing a pack shot does not produce official paths. A logo kit may also include PNG or JPG previews meant only for on-screen comps. Use the following checks on any file you prepare or evaluate.
- Confirm whether the face in an old lockup is an embedded image or a path drawing. An image object inside a vector file is still raster art.
- Confirm whether the Ben’s Original letters are outlines or live type. Live type requires the licensed font to remain editable.
- Do not treat .svg, .eps, .ai or .pdf as proof of editable paths. Inspect objects, clipping masks, image embeds and compound paths.
- Watch for a raster preview pasted on a pasteboard next to, or instead of, the working lockup.
- Watch for unofficial redraws: incorrect apostrophes, optical spacing, fake orange fills and extra slogans that never belonged to the master.
- Keep old and new lockups in separate file sets so a withdrawn portrait cannot be placed as if it were current packaging art.
Permission to download is not permission to modify or use
The marks, the character likeness, the wordmark and any proprietary fonts are owned by the brand owner. Finding a logo file, including a press image or a third-party “vector” listing, does not grant a right to redraw it, to put it on merchandise, to combine it with other brands or to present a traced version as your deliverable. Editorial identification of the product is a different question from commercial use, modification of artwork or embedding of the typeface. Those permissions have to come from the owner or from a licence that names the use.
The 2020 change does not put the old portrait into the public domain. It removes that portrait from the current identity. Using the withdrawn face as if it were still the on-pack logo is a brand-accuracy error as well as a rights question. Using Ben’s Original without authorisation is a conventional trademark issue. If you are preparing artwork for a client who sells the product, ask for the current master files and the usage sheet that accompanies them rather than rebuilding either era of the mark from a screenshot.
What this evaluation cannot confirm
This brief does not include official brand guidelines, master vector files, typeface names, Pantone or process-colour values, clear-space rules, or a licence for reproduction. Exact node counts, file sizes and production tests are not documented here and are not invented. Whether any particular download on the open web is true vector art, a raster-in-vector wrapper or an unofficial redraw cannot be answered from a filename. For a working file, the next step is to obtain the current Ben’s Original masters from the rights holder and inspect the objects inside them.