Well, when everyone does it, it is no longer a novelty. But it seems everyone is doing it out of necessity. After the bigtime fad of the 3D quasi-airbrushed logos for car brands, in the last few months, no less than 10 different brands have announced new logos (Volvo, Nissan, BMW, Mini, Dacia, Renault, Kia, Peugeot, VolksWagen, and Fiat have all went this route).
Actually, I also read somewhere that Audi has filed papers for a new logo very much in line with the ones presented in the image above. What is interesting is that in all cases, suddenly a new 2D logo has appeared. Truth be told, there are many elements of similarity with these brands' old logos from the 60s/70s. However, nostalgia is certainly not the driving element to be sure. Rather, it is the new social media.
Let me give you this design secret, long time ago (that would be till 2010 or so), to make sure a logo worked, we used to put it on the smallest surface on which it will be printed - namely the business card, if the logo was still visible then it was acceptable. Today, the smallest surface on which the logo will be displayed is no longer the business card but your Instagram handle. And the less complicated the logo, the more streamlined, simple, 2-Dimentional, the more you have the possibility of being immediately seen by your audience as everyone is competing for eyeballs.
However, in defense of the car brands, each one tried to keep its own identity separate as opposed to clothing brands who went almost anonymous with their new logos (for some odd reason major luxury houses have decided to go the let-us-all-look-the-same route). If you do not believe me look at the image below.
