Tangerine is the direct banking subsidiary of Scotiabank in Canada, launched in 2014 when the former ING Direct Canada was required to shed the ING name following Scotiabank’s 2012 acquisition of the business. The rebrand introduced a new name and a new visual identity, replacing ING Direct’s orange lion logo with a typographic wordmark built around the colour orange.
Design and History
ING Direct Canada announced on November 5, 2013 that it would operate under the new name Tangerine effective spring 2014, revealing the new visual identity at an unveiling event in Toronto. The name change was required as part of the 2012 acquisition by Scotiabank, which stipulated that ING Direct could no longer use the ING brand after 2014. The rebranding process took 12 months and involved consultation with more than 10,000 Canadians through qualitative and quantitative research. [1]
The visual identity was developed by Toronto-based Concrete Design, which also created a digital design system for the bank following its transition from ING Direct Canada. [2] The naming work was handled by California-based Lexicon, which chose Tangerine as a counter-intuitive name for a bank that leveraged the orange colour associated with ING while signalling a fresh approach. [3]
The logo consists of the word “Tangerine” in orange, punctuated by an arrowhead. [4] The arrow was restyled from ING Direct’s previous mark and now points upward. [5] The tagline “Forward Banking” was retained from the ING Direct era, providing continuity with the previous brand. [6]
Meaning and Symbolism
The name Tangerine was chosen to maintain a link to ING Direct’s signature orange colour while signalling a new flavour of banking that did not fit the traditional model for naming a bank. [3] The upward-pointing arrow, restyled from the previous ING mark, reinforces the “Forward Banking” tagline and the bank’s positioning around progress and innovation. [5]
Typography and Design
The Tangerine wordmark uses a modern sans-serif typeface, a departure from ING Direct’s previous branding. The logo is rendered in a warm red-orange colour, with grey as a secondary colour replacing ING Direct’s dark blue. [4] The design system developed by Concrete was intended to modernize the bank’s image while maintaining customer trust and continuity during the rebranding process. [2]
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