Restore the historic American Chemical Society logo
The Issue
As chemists and members of the American Chemical Society, we are calling on the ACS Board of Directors to reverse the decision to replace the Society’s historic visual identity. We ask ACS to restore the cobalt-blue-and-gold phoenix and Liebig-bulb emblem as its primary public-facing logo and to reopen the redesign process with meaningful involvement from the membership.
Why the new logo should be rejected
The new logo removes the elements that made the ACS identity distinctive, recognizable, and specific to chemistry. The phoenix, the Liebig bulb, the diamond-shaped emblem, and the cobalt-blue-and-gold colors have been replaced by an abstract symbol that has no clear connection to the chemical sciences.
The problem is not simply that the logo is new. The problem is that it is generic. Without the letters “ACS” and an accompanying explanation, the symbol could represent a software company, consulting firm, financial service, telecommunications provider, or international nonprofit. It does not identify chemistry, reflect the history of chemical science, or convey the authority of a scientific society founded in 1876.
A strong logo should not require a branding presentation to explain what it represents. The historic ACS emblem carried its meaning within the design itself.
The phoenix represented chemical activity and the creation of new substances through chemical change. The Liebig bulb, also known as the kaliapparat, represented a landmark in the development of quantitative organic analysis. Together with the Society’s established colors and diamond-shaped form, these elements created an identity that could not easily be mistaken for that of another organization.
The former emblem was not an arbitrary piece of old artwork. Its history extends to a design adopted by ACS in 1909 and associated with Tiffany & Co. It connected the Society to the development of modern chemistry and to generations of chemists who recognized it as the insignia of their professional community.
Replacing that identity during the Society’s 150th anniversary was particularly misguided. An anniversary of this importance should have strengthened the connection between ACS history and its future. Instead, ACS used the occasion to remove the most visible symbol of that continuity.
The process has not been sufficiently transparent
ACS states that the new identity was developed over two years through market research, workshops, listening sessions, and feedback from members, customers, employees, and partners. That description does not provide enough information to determine whether ACS members supported the final decision.
ACS has not publicly disclosed how many members participated, how those members were selected, what questions they were asked, what the results showed, what alternative designs were considered, or whether participants were shown the final logo. ACS has also not said whether members were directly asked if the historic emblem should be removed from the Society’s primary identity.
Receiving feedback from some members is not the same as obtaining the informed support of the membership. A consultation process can help shape a project without giving participants any meaningful authority over the final decision.
The public governance record also needs clarification. Published reports from ACS Board meetings describe rebranding as an update provided by the CEO and staff, but the publicly available summaries we reviewed do not identify a Board vote approving the final logo. This does not establish that no approval occurred. It establishes that ACS has not made the approval process clear to its members.
That lack of clarity is especially important because the current ACS Governing Documents continue to define cobalt blue and gold as the Society’s colors. They also describe the official insignia as containing the phoenix, the letters ACS, and a small Liebig bulb. The same documents state that changes in the style of the emblem must be approved by the Board of Directors.
ACS should explain whether the new logo replaces the official insignia or exists separately from it. It should also publish when the final design was approved, who approved it, what authority was used, and whether the Board formally considered the removal of the historic emblem from public use.
Members deserve a full accounting of the cost
A rebrand of this scale involves more than drawing a new logo. It can require market research, outside agency work, design development, staff time, new websites, templates, publications, signs, meeting materials, digital assets, merchandise, training, and implementation across ACS programs and member-led units.
ACS has not publicly disclosed the total project cost, the identity of the outside agency or agencies involved, the value of their contracts, or the expected cost of implementing the new identity throughout the organization.
The Society’s public financial statements report broad spending categories for communications, marketing, promotion, and professional services, but they do not isolate the cost of this project. As a result, members cannot determine how much was spent or whether the expenditure was proportionate to any demonstrated need.
We are not assigning an invented price to the rebrand or claiming that every dollar spent on communications was related to it. We are asking ACS to provide the actual figures. Members should not have to speculate about the cost of a major institutional decision made with Society resources.
ACS should disclose the project budget, payments to outside firms, internal implementation costs, expected future expenses, and the criteria it will use to determine whether the rebrand has achieved any measurable benefit.
Modernization did not require ACS to erase its identity
Other major scientific societies have shown that modernization and continuity can coexist. The Royal Society of Chemistry updated its visual identity while deliberately retaining recognizable elements and making its logo more clearly connected to chemistry. The American Society for Microbiology reimagined its established microscope symbol while preserving an obvious link to microbiology and the Society’s history.
ACS could have taken the same approach. It could have simplified the phoenix and Liebig bulb, improved their performance at small sizes, updated the typography, refined the color system, and created versions suited to digital platforms. It could have solved practical design problems without discarding the identity itself.
Instead, ACS replaced a distinctive chemical emblem with a symbol that has no self-evident relationship to chemistry. That was not an unavoidable consequence of modernization. It was a design choice, and it was the wrong choice.
What we are asking the ACS Board of Directors to do
We call on the Board to take the following actions:
- Restore the historic phoenix and Liebig-bulb emblem as the primary public-facing identity of the American Chemical Society.
- Suspend the permanent retirement of the historic logo while the decision is reviewed. Local sections, divisions, international chapters, student communities, and other ACS units should be allowed to continue using it without being required to replace existing materials.
- Publish the research methodology, participant composition, questions, findings, design alternatives, evaluation criteria, and member feedback used to justify the final design.
- Publish the formal approval record and explain how the new logo relates to the colors, insignia, and emblem described in the ACS Governing Documents.
- Disclose the total project budget, implementation cost, outside agencies and consultants involved, contract values, expected benefits, and measures that will be used to evaluate the rebrand.
- Conduct a transparent membership-wide survey that presents the historic logo, the new logo, and professionally developed alternatives that retain the phoenix, Liebig bulb, and cobalt-blue-and-gold identity. The complete results should be released to the membership.
ACS is a member-based scientific society, not a private company whose institutional identity can be treated as the property of a branding department or executive team. The Board may have the authority to make branding decisions, but responsible authority requires transparency, financial accountability, and serious consideration of the members who give the Society its legitimacy.
This petition does not ask ACS to freeze its visual identity in the past. It asks ACS to pursue a redesign worthy of a scientific society: one based on evidence, explained openly, approved through a transparent process, and rooted unmistakably in chemistry.
The current logo fails that standard. ACS should restore the historic emblem and reopen the process.
Please sign this petition to demand the restoration of the historic American Chemical Society logo and to require transparency, accountability, and meaningful member participation in any future redesign.
107
The Issue
As chemists and members of the American Chemical Society, we are calling on the ACS Board of Directors to reverse the decision to replace the Society’s historic visual identity. We ask ACS to restore the cobalt-blue-and-gold phoenix and Liebig-bulb emblem as its primary public-facing logo and to reopen the redesign process with meaningful involvement from the membership.
Why the new logo should be rejected
The new logo removes the elements that made the ACS identity distinctive, recognizable, and specific to chemistry. The phoenix, the Liebig bulb, the diamond-shaped emblem, and the cobalt-blue-and-gold colors have been replaced by an abstract symbol that has no clear connection to the chemical sciences.
The problem is not simply that the logo is new. The problem is that it is generic. Without the letters “ACS” and an accompanying explanation, the symbol could represent a software company, consulting firm, financial service, telecommunications provider, or international nonprofit. It does not identify chemistry, reflect the history of chemical science, or convey the authority of a scientific society founded in 1876.
A strong logo should not require a branding presentation to explain what it represents. The historic ACS emblem carried its meaning within the design itself.
The phoenix represented chemical activity and the creation of new substances through chemical change. The Liebig bulb, also known as the kaliapparat, represented a landmark in the development of quantitative organic analysis. Together with the Society’s established colors and diamond-shaped form, these elements created an identity that could not easily be mistaken for that of another organization.
The former emblem was not an arbitrary piece of old artwork. Its history extends to a design adopted by ACS in 1909 and associated with Tiffany & Co. It connected the Society to the development of modern chemistry and to generations of chemists who recognized it as the insignia of their professional community.
Replacing that identity during the Society’s 150th anniversary was particularly misguided. An anniversary of this importance should have strengthened the connection between ACS history and its future. Instead, ACS used the occasion to remove the most visible symbol of that continuity.
The process has not been sufficiently transparent
ACS states that the new identity was developed over two years through market research, workshops, listening sessions, and feedback from members, customers, employees, and partners. That description does not provide enough information to determine whether ACS members supported the final decision.
ACS has not publicly disclosed how many members participated, how those members were selected, what questions they were asked, what the results showed, what alternative designs were considered, or whether participants were shown the final logo. ACS has also not said whether members were directly asked if the historic emblem should be removed from the Society’s primary identity.
Receiving feedback from some members is not the same as obtaining the informed support of the membership. A consultation process can help shape a project without giving participants any meaningful authority over the final decision.
The public governance record also needs clarification. Published reports from ACS Board meetings describe rebranding as an update provided by the CEO and staff, but the publicly available summaries we reviewed do not identify a Board vote approving the final logo. This does not establish that no approval occurred. It establishes that ACS has not made the approval process clear to its members.
That lack of clarity is especially important because the current ACS Governing Documents continue to define cobalt blue and gold as the Society’s colors. They also describe the official insignia as containing the phoenix, the letters ACS, and a small Liebig bulb. The same documents state that changes in the style of the emblem must be approved by the Board of Directors.
ACS should explain whether the new logo replaces the official insignia or exists separately from it. It should also publish when the final design was approved, who approved it, what authority was used, and whether the Board formally considered the removal of the historic emblem from public use.
Members deserve a full accounting of the cost
A rebrand of this scale involves more than drawing a new logo. It can require market research, outside agency work, design development, staff time, new websites, templates, publications, signs, meeting materials, digital assets, merchandise, training, and implementation across ACS programs and member-led units.
ACS has not publicly disclosed the total project cost, the identity of the outside agency or agencies involved, the value of their contracts, or the expected cost of implementing the new identity throughout the organization.
The Society’s public financial statements report broad spending categories for communications, marketing, promotion, and professional services, but they do not isolate the cost of this project. As a result, members cannot determine how much was spent or whether the expenditure was proportionate to any demonstrated need.
We are not assigning an invented price to the rebrand or claiming that every dollar spent on communications was related to it. We are asking ACS to provide the actual figures. Members should not have to speculate about the cost of a major institutional decision made with Society resources.
ACS should disclose the project budget, payments to outside firms, internal implementation costs, expected future expenses, and the criteria it will use to determine whether the rebrand has achieved any measurable benefit.
Modernization did not require ACS to erase its identity
Other major scientific societies have shown that modernization and continuity can coexist. The Royal Society of Chemistry updated its visual identity while deliberately retaining recognizable elements and making its logo more clearly connected to chemistry. The American Society for Microbiology reimagined its established microscope symbol while preserving an obvious link to microbiology and the Society’s history.
ACS could have taken the same approach. It could have simplified the phoenix and Liebig bulb, improved their performance at small sizes, updated the typography, refined the color system, and created versions suited to digital platforms. It could have solved practical design problems without discarding the identity itself.
Instead, ACS replaced a distinctive chemical emblem with a symbol that has no self-evident relationship to chemistry. That was not an unavoidable consequence of modernization. It was a design choice, and it was the wrong choice.
What we are asking the ACS Board of Directors to do
We call on the Board to take the following actions:
- Restore the historic phoenix and Liebig-bulb emblem as the primary public-facing identity of the American Chemical Society.
- Suspend the permanent retirement of the historic logo while the decision is reviewed. Local sections, divisions, international chapters, student communities, and other ACS units should be allowed to continue using it without being required to replace existing materials.
- Publish the research methodology, participant composition, questions, findings, design alternatives, evaluation criteria, and member feedback used to justify the final design.
- Publish the formal approval record and explain how the new logo relates to the colors, insignia, and emblem described in the ACS Governing Documents.
- Disclose the total project budget, implementation cost, outside agencies and consultants involved, contract values, expected benefits, and measures that will be used to evaluate the rebrand.
- Conduct a transparent membership-wide survey that presents the historic logo, the new logo, and professionally developed alternatives that retain the phoenix, Liebig bulb, and cobalt-blue-and-gold identity. The complete results should be released to the membership.
ACS is a member-based scientific society, not a private company whose institutional identity can be treated as the property of a branding department or executive team. The Board may have the authority to make branding decisions, but responsible authority requires transparency, financial accountability, and serious consideration of the members who give the Society its legitimacy.
This petition does not ask ACS to freeze its visual identity in the past. It asks ACS to pursue a redesign worthy of a scientific society: one based on evidence, explained openly, approved through a transparent process, and rooted unmistakably in chemistry.
The current logo fails that standard. ACS should restore the historic emblem and reopen the process.
Please sign this petition to demand the restoration of the historic American Chemical Society logo and to require transparency, accountability, and meaningful member participation in any future redesign.
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Petition created on August 5, 2026