In preparation for its spinoff from Time Warner, scheduled for Dec. 9, AOL will reveal new logos that shed the triangle and running man and replace AOL with Aol. (period included). The lettering will appear over several backgrounds.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong told paidContent:

There’s always something behind AOL. That’s the thing that we’re hoping to get across with our AOL brand. The AOL brand is composed of many different things. The nomenclature of the dot is what comes after the dot.

I don’t think there’s really any risk in it because the future of our business is really about showing people what we’re doing. It’s one of those things in the next few years that will be a sea change in AOL.

The hardest part about brands is everybody’s got an opinion. What really matters is how well you like our products and services…We looked at a lot of different brand treatments. We felt this was the one that captured what was happening at the company underneath the surface. People see AOL as a big turnaround, but there is so much creativity at the company now.

We thought it was important to keep the a, the o, the l, but we were OK changing the case of the o and the l because it’s kind of a lead in to the dot and to where things are going…Having people look at the identity differently will probably have them at least be open to thinking about the brand differently, something’s changed, been updated—another reason for them think differently about AOL.

Armstrong told The New York Times:

There was a lot of feedback from people: Should we even stick with the AOL brand?

AOL is a turnaround situation. It will take every ounce of blood, sweat and tears to make it successful.