A company's logo can be crucial to its development, as a key to instant customer recognition and brand loyalty among users. 

But recently a lot of big brands have been overhauling their logos. Experts believe that a brighter and simpler logo will be fit for the emerging media platforms and impress more customers online.

Google recently updated all its logos and icons, coming out with simpler, more colorful icons for mail, calendar and Google Drive. China's Alipay came up with a new design earlier this year, with darker and higher contrast. And automaker KIA has announced a new one for next year - simpler, higher contrast, and they've gotten rid of that confusing circle around the company name.

Prof. Xiao Bing from Shanghai Jiaotong University's design school told CGTN one of the crucial reasons behind the change is the changing media on which the logos appear.

"Colorful logos are quite common now, because the development of technology means they now need to look good on screens. Older ones designed for print media are no longer needed, so companies are making revisions," Xiao said, adding that "with the further application of artificial intelligence, big data and 3D holography, there will definitely be more changes."

Yan Junchang, partner of Yess Creative & Design, considers simpler and brighter as the obvious trends for those new logos.

"Companies are all putting their efforts into e-commerce, so while in the past, logos could be designed by hand and be quite complicated, now you have to impress consumers online. Coca-Cola, Alipay and Starbucks are all making their logos simpler," Yan commented.

Making a logo suitable for new communication channels is one thing, but it turns out another factor with a new designs is what consumers think of it.

Google, Instagram and Starbucks have all been monitoring what consumers think of their changes. The new logos can be just as crucial to a company's future as the old ones were.

"Changes in logos will present a fresh image to consumers, but if they are not good enough, the changes will have negative impacts. It depends on whether the new logos meet consumers' expectations," Xiao noted.