Diem was the name adopted in December 2020 by the Libra Association, the Geneva-based consortium behind Facebook’s proposed global digital currency. The rebrand from Libra to Diem, the Latin word for “day,” was announced on December 1, 2020, as the project sought to move past the regulatory controversy that had surrounded it since its June 2019 unveiling. The Diem Association described the new name as denoting “a new day for the project.” [1]
Design and History
The Diem logo was not a new design but a continuation of the visual identity created for Libra. When the association announced the rebrand, it unveiled a logo that retained the purple theme, triple horizontal swooshes, and lowercase wordmark of the original Libra mark. [1] The new logo maintained the purple color and fluid movement design, with “diem” written in lowercase. [2]The original Libra logo was designed by Character, a San Francisco-based design agency. Character’s creative director and co-founder Ben Pham shared the Calibra logo on LinkedIn on the same day Facebook announced Libra in June 2019. [3] The agency’s work on the Libra identity drew public attention when Stuart Sopp, CEO of the fintech company Current, claimed that the Calibra logo closely resembled a logo Character had designed for Current in 2016. Sopp told CNBC that both logos were created by the same design firm and featured a wave inside a circle. [4]The Diem Association’s trademark filing for the DIEM mark describes it as consisting of “three vertically-stacked wavy lines appearing to the left of the stylized word DIEM.” [5]Meaning and Symbolism
The name Diem derives from the Latin word for “day,” best known from the phrase “carpe diem.” The association’s announcement said the name “denotes a new day for the project.” [1] The original Libra name came from the Latin word for “scales” or “balance,” a reference to the project’s proposed basket of stable currencies. [6]The design agency Sea Street, which worked on the Diem brand, described its approach as creating “a simple, yet flexible brand identity that could be easily adapted to different cultures and markets around the world.” [7]Typography and Design
The Diem wordmark uses lowercase lettering, a feature carried over from the original Libra logo. [1] The mark consists of three vertically stacked wavy lines to the left of the stylized word “Diem,” according to the trademark filing. [5]The project’s code repository on GitHub shows a pull request from December 2020 titled “Update diem logo,” which updated the logo with the new name. [8]Logo Index is an independent educational archive covering logos, visual identities and graphic design history. All trademarks and brand assets remain the property of their respective owners.
