CIA Redesign

About

CIA Redesign refers to a new logo introduced by the Central Intelligence Agency in January of 2021 as part of its effort to diversify its talent pool and attract younger candidates. The new logo features the name "CIA" over a black backdrop and jagged white lines, reminiscent of the Unknown Pleasures album cover. Twitter users joked about the new logo by saying it resembled an album cover.

Origin

On January 4th, 2021, the CIA debuted a new recruitment website^[2] to signal they were trying to shed their image as an "old boys club" and attract a more diverse, younger talent pool.^[1] Part of this effort was the debut of a new, edgy and modern logo (shown below).

Spread

After the redesigned logo spread on social media, people quickly made jokes about how the logo looked like an album cover.^[3] For example, user @SarahQuirm^[4] joked, "CIA rebranding as a modular synthesizer festival in Berlin," gaining over 1,400 retweets and 16,000 likes (shown below, left). User @liz_franczak^[5] joked, "CIA new EP out 02.01.21," gaining over 130 retweets and 4,100 likes (shown below, right).

Others made parody versions of the CIA logo. For example, user @girlrifle^[6] posted an edit that superimposed the logo over the cover of Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion, gaining over 100 retweets and 2,000 likes (shown below, left). User @bjorlax_^[7] posted a parody where the CIA name is over a generic company design, gaining over 6,600 retweets and 117,000 likes (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References