OUGD403 Studio Brief 01 - Logotype

Branding is an important part of retail. Whether it’s a brand or a high street store. For a brand to be successful it must be recognisable as well as creative but have a logical format. Often the most successful branding is the simplest. For example, Nike, McDonalds and Starbucks. These brands use the most simplistic designs but are recognisable internationally. Most of these brands are recognisable even without any typography.

Nike is a perfect example of iconic branding. It is recognisable globally. Its typography is simple, and it is paired with a swoosh. The swoosh is even recognized on its own as Nike. It is said the logotype is a variant of Futura. However, the Nike swoosh was so iconic that they went through a ‘debranding’ process where the swoosh was used on its own.

McDonalds is another example of how the brand can be instantly recognisable with just a symbol. The Golden Arches, which were first designed in 1961, are still used today and are recognisable globally. Originally intended to demonstrate the 1952 architecture of the original restaurant, the Golden Arches were designed with a strike going through them do demonstrate a roof. There are so many variations of the arches, however they are so recognisable that everyone knows what they represent.

Starbucks, which has recently gone through a rebrand, is another iconic brand. Whenever a brand undergoes a rebrand it must think about the purpose. Starbucks clearly thought out the strategy of a rebrand. The aim of their most recent rebrand was to recreate the experience of coffee and communicate what the coffee shop’s future holds.

For this rebrand project I had to rebrand a high street store using typography. I could use any store as long as it wasn’t independent and was national. So for this project I decided to rebrand T. K. Maxx.

T. K. Maxx is an off-price retailer, meaning it sells big labeled brands for a much lower price. They don’t follow the RRP (recommended retail price), T. K. Maxx aims to keep up to date with the current trends in fashion and claims its typical shopper will do the same thing. As someone who shops in T. K. Maxx myself I can believe this as I have often found clothes at a great cost that have been current in trends and that have lasted in trend for a long time also.

T. K. Maxx really makes sure it is known as a store that thinks about its customer. The target audience is someone that likes cheap clothes but to stay in fashion. They buy seasonally to keep the trends current in store and keep the stock rotating. So their target audience really is people who care about fashion and want to stay with the trends.

However having clothes at such cheap prices there must be some drawbacks? Of course, every store I have been in feels a little like a jumble sale. The clothes are organized loosely and the store design is cheap. I went in during my research and got a good feel for the shop and I feel that the stores overall design compliments the shops value for selling top brands cheaply, however the store feels a little too cheap and I feel they could draw in even more potential customers if they rebranded to make it feel a little more like a classy store.

So to begin with I experimented with modern styled typography like Helvetica and Futura however I found that with the colour, as I wanted go continue using red, it didn’t work very well. It still made the store look slightly tacky and cheap. And it didn’t connote class, which is the style I want to pursue.

So I experimented with serif type faces as they best connote a classy company. However I felt that it looked a little too high class and that if I did decide finally on this style, the store might lose its original target audience. So I decided to experiment with the circle, as it seemed to be a dominant theme throughout the store. I experimented with all sorts of different ways of using the serif typeface. In the end I decided on using Times New Roman. I experimented with putting parts of the type inside the circle; I experimented with giving the circle a stroke and giving it a solid colour. The circle took away a lot of the feeling of class, which worked, as I didn’t want the store to become too high class, I still want the original target audience to be attracted to it.

After experimenting with many different styles I showed my work to a critique group. They agreed with me that the serif type looked too posh for T. K. Maxx however they liked the use of the circle. The experimentation I had done with the circle didn’t agree with the majority of the group so they gave me ideas of how to develop it further. My feedback included: ‘put the whole text in the circle’, ‘try having the text on two lines’, ‘use a different red’ and ‘try a bold serif type’.

After taking this feedback I went away and decided on a design that worked best. I found that the designs I chose to finalise were most convertible to a number of different products, such as a shop front, labels and a website.

At the end of this brief I presented my work to another critique group and it was received with overall positive opinions. I intended to rebrand T. K. Maxx to make the target audience much wider than it is and the feedback I received proved that what I had done achieved this. “Opens a new market and audience while keeping it current”, these comments show that what I wanted to achieve works. However it is a drastic change from the original branding and many people felt that it would scare off the original audience because the change makes it look a little to upper class. “I feel the logo is aimed at only a small audience, that being upper class people, although the red reminds me of sales and low prices”, it looks like the shop sells expensive products which might throw off some people” and “I think it would be a smaller target audience because it looks too formal and high class”. Although the original audience will know that the store sells big brands for less and I think it will work because of the association with the serif type.