Waze logo redesign: comparing the old and new versions
Compare the old and new Waze logos: geometry, color, wordmark, scalability and vector editability, plus when to use each mark.
Contents
What the Waze logo is
The Waze logo is the smiling ghost-like mascot often called the Wazer. Its silhouette is a rounded balloon that also reads as a map pin and a speech bubble: a bulbous head, two dark oval eyes, a simple smile, and a pointed tail at the bottom. That three-way reading—character, location marker, conversation—is the design concept, whether you are looking at an app icon, a brand lockup with the word “waze,” or a standalone symbol.
The redesign in question is an evolution of that same mascot, not a replacement symbol. The older version is the glossy, dimensional balloon Wazer. The newer version is a flatter, more geometric drawing of the same character. Both remain the Waze trademark identity. This comparison is about how the mark is drawn and how that drawing behaves as a logo asset, not about a change of name or a new emblem.
Official hex values, exact path geometry and licensed vector files were not supplied with this brief, so color codes, node counts and file-size claims below are described in visual terms only. A filename ending in a vector extension does not prove clean geometry, and the presence of a logo file does not grant permission to reuse it.
How the old and new versions differ
Viewed as comparable marks—same character, same role as app icon and lockup—the meaningful differences sit in geometry, surface treatment, face drawing, color structure, wordmark, small-size performance and how editable the artwork is. Tradeoffs follow from those choices; which version to use depends on whether the job is current brand work, historical reproduction or production in a constrained medium.
| Criterion | Older Waze mark | Newer Waze mark |
| Silhouette | Softer, more balloon-like outline with a pronounced pin tail and a slightly illustrated contour | Tighter, more regular curve radii; the pin tail is simpler and the overall mass is easier to read as one shape |
| Surface | Skeuomorphic depth: cyan gradients, a specular highlight on the upper balloon, and often a drop shadow | Flat or near-flat fill; gloss and shadow reduced or removed so the mark is a silhouette plus face |
| Face | Softer, more cartoon eyes and mouth, with extra interior detail that reads as volume | Geometric dark ovals and a single smile arc; less interior drawing, more expression from two or three shapes |
| Color | Multi-stop cyan, with lighter highlights and darker edges that shift as the mark scales | A more uniform cyan field that stays consistent across sizes and backgrounds |
| Wordmark | Playful lowercase “waze,” often tightly coupled to the mascot in lockups | Cleaner geometric sans, more even letterspacing and a more stable lockup with the symbol |
| Small-size behavior | Highlight, shadow and facial detail collapse or muddy below typical favicon and status-bar sizes | The simplified silhouette and face hold longer when the mark is reduced |
| Vector editability | More paths and effects; gradients and shadows may live as appearance effects or raster leftovers | Fewer interior forms; easier to recolor, outline, reverse and prepare as a single-color mark |
Geometry and silhouette
Both versions share the same construction: a wide rounded body, a taper into a bottom point, and a face centered in the upper mass. The older drawing treats that body like an inflated balloon. Outline tension varies; the tail is more of a modelled drip; interior shine is a separate light shape, which adds nodes and a second tonal plane. The newer drawing regularizes those curves. Corner radii feel more consistent, the tail is a cleaner wedge or curve, and the interior is mostly one fill. The face sits in a quieter field, so eye spacing and the smile arc carry more of the character.
For vector work, that shift is practical. A glossy balloon is a cluster of fills, gradients and sometimes a shadow. A flat Wazer is closer to a single compound path plus two or three face shapes. Optical alignment still matters: the pin must sit on a true vertical, the eyes must be optically centered in the balloon (not mathematically centered, because the tail pulls the mass downward), and the smile must clear the chin of the balloon so it does not merge with the outline at small sizes. Those checks apply to both versions; the newer geometry simply leaves fewer competing edges.
Color and surface
Waze is identified with a bright cyan. In the older mark that cyan is a range: a light highlight, a mid fill and a cooler or darker edge, plus a grey or blue-tinted shadow. In the newer mark it is closer to one brand fill, with the face in a dark contrast color (typically near-black) so the smile and eyes stay legible on the cyan field. Without a supplied brand manual, treat any specific swatch as unverified and match artwork to the current official palette rather than sampling a screenshot.
Surface treatment changes how the mark sits on a background. Gradient and gloss need a clear field and can clash with photography or busy UI. A flat cyan ghost punches on white, dark maps and solid brand color, and it reverses more cleanly to a one-color knockout. The older dimensional version can feel friendlier and more toy-like; the newer version feels more like a UI glyph. That is an editorial reading of the same mascot under two rendering styles, not a documented brand claim.
Typography in the lockup
When the mascot appears with the wordmark, the lettering is lowercase “waze” in a rounded, geometric sans. Older lockups tend to feel more custom and compact, with the type tucked against the balloon. Newer lockups give the letters more even width, more consistent stroke, and more breathing room between symbol and type. Tracking and the gap between the pin and the first letter are the controls that make the lockup feel locked rather than like a clip-art ghost next to a word.
Do not redraw the wordmark from memory or substitute a lookalike font for public use. For historical layouts, match the period lockup. For current work, use the current spacing, alignment and clear space from official artwork. Clear space should be measured from the outermost points of the balloon and the pin, not from the bounding box of the face alone.
Scalability and production
The older mark is built for a medium size: large enough for the highlight and smile to read, small enough to still feel like a sticker. Below that, the shine becomes noise, the shadow becomes a blur, and the eyes can fill in. The newer mark is built to survive reduction. At favicon and notification sizes you still get a cyan pin-balloon and two dark spots; the smile is the first feature to go, which is expected. Neither version was tested here for rendering, file weight or print registration, so treat small-size comments as geometric reasoning, not lab results.
- Check the symbol alone at 16, 24, 32 and 64 pixels, and in a large print proof, before trusting a file.
- Prefer a true outline version: fills as paths, no embedded bitmaps, no unexplained clipping masks.
- Build a one-color version (solid cyan or solid dark) for embroidery, engraving, fax-style legal pages and single-ink print.
- Keep a reversed (light-on-dark) version; the newer flat mark reverses more reliably than a gradient balloon.
- Do not reconstruct the mascot from a compressed PNG. Trace-and-guess artwork will drift eye spacing, tail angle and smile weight.
Which version to use
For any current public-facing identity—app, site, partnership lockup, vehicle, print, social avatar—use the current official Waze mark. Trademark consistency outweighs nostalgia. The newer drawing is also the better production default: simpler paths, more stable color, stronger small-size silhouette and easier single-color conversion.
Use the older glossy Wazer only when the job is historical: a timeline, an archive, a documentary still, or a faithful recreation of a past screen or campaign. Mixing the two in one system (old ghost on a new wordmark, or vice versa) reads as an error, not as a variant. If you are choosing among files rather than eras, choose the asset that matches the current geometry, is actually vector (editable paths, not a raster wrapped in a vector container), and includes the lockup, symbol-only and one-color forms you need.
A practical next step is to obtain official current artwork, confirm it is outline vector, then proof the symbol and the wordmark lockup on light, dark and mapped-navigation backgrounds at the smallest size you will actually ship. Keep older files labelled as historical so they cannot slip into live templates.