2018 Believe In Something!

The year in design and branding saw more high than lows, more stripping away the excess to reveal future potentials and a much deeper soul searching in who we are and how we want to see ourselves down the line. As the political landscape noise got louder and crazier on the outside, brands dug deep to find out who they are and how they want to be perceived. Some failed miserably at achieving that goal, because they simply ignored the power of consumer outcry and social media backlash, while others did a much better job at it. Obviously Nike’s "Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything" campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, was probably the biggest advertising story of the year.  It polarized the masses, yet created a definite line in the sand for Nike fans versus those who raged against them. Yet the campaign proved to be a PR and financial boom for Nike, as their stock shares soared and fan-base grew beyond their own expectations. As usual the knee jerk reaction to the campaign looked like it was doomed to fail when it launched, but as the story behind the campaign unfolded, and Nike corporate was very transparent and unapologetic, we learnt that Nike had been cleverly building up the campaign with Kaepernick and other outspoken athletes way back in 2015. But as the say, timing is everything, with the ongoing political climate, the timing was ripe for Nike to launch its ad campaign with Kaepernick as the face of the resistance. Both the message and visuals tone, struck a nerve in the American psyche that prompted some to burn their Nike sneakers, while others created viral memes in support of the the message and in solidarity with Kaepernick’s kneeling.

            On the flip side of the coin, H&M’s “ #HoodieGate showing a young Black boy wearing a hoddie with the words “Coolest Monkey In The Jungle” was swiftly recognized as offensive and a big fail for the brand. H&M swiftly removed the item from the stores as well as issued a public apology and promise to look into investing more diversity training throughout their corporate routines. Unfortunately other brands were not paying attention and decided to forge ahead with tone deaf campaigns and products that may not destroy their brands but definitely hurt their overall credibility. Most recently PRADA’s collection features a $550 “Otto-Toto”monkeylike keychain with dark brown skin and large lips.The new “Pradamalia” collection of wallets, jewelry and trinkets is part of what Prada calls “a new family of mysterious tiny creatures that are one part biological, one part technological, all parts Prada.” The obvious backlash was immediate and swift. As Chinyere Ezieposted on her Facebook page

“I don’t make a lot of public posts, but right now I’m shaking with anger. Today after returning to NYC after a very emotional visit to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture including an exhibit on blackface, I walked past Prada’s Soho storefront only to be confronted with the very same racist and denigrating #blackface imagery.” As a result PRADA apologized and stated that the label added it never had the intention of offending anyone and will “withdraw the characters in question from display and circulation.”

Heineken joined the herd of most embarrassing mistakes of the year by running a tone-deaf commercial that landed it in hot with 30-second ad showed a bartender sliding a beer past three people, all of whom are black, to a lighter-skinned woman. The tag line read "Sometimes, lighter is better." Celebs like Chance the Rapper immediately took to social media to voice his disapproval “that he's not encouraging fans to boycott the brand but questioned how such a tone-deaf commercial could make it past a marketing agency, business executives and others before airing.” A valid point which may seem sometimes obvious to the general public, but keeps happening on the agency and corporate level all the time. Behind closed doors and in their board rooms, creative leads and marketing decision makers, have to step back and do a much better job in evaluating their work on a cultural and social responsibility level. The consumers have the upper hand today and they dictate the fate of brands and what they expect from them. 

            Next campaign misfire, that probably sounded smart on paper, but once they rolled it out to the public just did not sit well with the consumers and plainly confused the rest of us. IHOP announced that it will be changing its name to "IHOb" and teased everyone on social media to basically guess what the "b" will stand for. Branders were successful in that regard in that there have been plenty of guesses offered that range from "breakfast" to "burgers" to "burritos." Turns out, it's burgers! Well it backfired horribly at first, but PR wise some see it as a successful way of making people aware that they also sell burgers, but on a wider level it did more to hurt the brand optics and see it as a plain dumb move that they know recognize as are trying to correct by 'apologizing' for the giant burger whoops by offering 60 cent pancakes, as they celebrate their 60th anniversary.   

            On the redesign and overhaul level, 2018 has had its moments of glory and facelifts. Dunkin’ Donutsrebrand as Dunkin’,seems have done it right with a successful renaming and rebranding that is both bold and seems to have been accepted by pretty much everyone. A much more streamlined menu of items that’s both reflected visually throughout all their packaging and branding executions. Simple and giving way to become a more flexible brand, this seems to be a new direction that some of the other competitive brands may seems to follow and use as a great case study of how to rebrand yourself without alienating your fans. “Adopting a single-word name will increase the brand’s flexibility as it continues to dominate its market and, probably sooner than you think, will most like spawn lifestyle-ish apparel and other covetable items that I don’t think would have been possible with “Donuts” weighing it down.” Jones Knowles Ritchie

Pentagram’s partnering with Harry Pearce created a unified brand identity for John Lewis and Waitrose adding the words "& Partners" to each brand's name to draw attention to the employee-owned business model. A complete visual identity roll out that was beautifully executed with a honest strategy and reference to the companies heritage line patterns. "The pattern can also be softened and integrated with product imagery through blurring, giving an impression of depth and dimensionality in film," said the design studio.

            Uber threw its hat in the game by rolling out a completely new rebrand, identity and communication system. Since its last rebrand in 2016, which got extremely mixed reviews, incoming CEO Dara Khosrowshahi made sure the job was done properly by partnering his in-house design team with brand consultancy Wolff Olins and MCKL, a type foundry, throughout the nine-month-long redesign process. The result, a clean and strong design system that places the emphasis on the “U” in the both identity as well as the more approachable tone of voice and open design system. The clarity in its design typography system and color choices, shows also a more transparent and people centric focus “instead of pursuing a complex system to be localised through colors and patterns, we moved towards a universal 'beyond-simple' global brand that teams on the ground could localize with content relevant to their audiences." 

            Mailchimp’s rebrand by Collins San Francisco, demonstrated that you can have a rebrand and still maintain the fun aspects intact without too much “Monkeying” around with the personality and brand characteristics elements that worked before. The new illustration styles and typography selection create the same sense of whimsy and playfulness as the previous branding, yet optimized more for web and UX applications. 

“With this redesign, we set out to retain all the weird, lovable elements that endeared our earliest customers to Mailchimp, while creating space for the brand to grow and connect with even more small businesses.” 

            Weight Watchers became “WW” with the tagline “Wellness that Works”, but the brand seems to be looking for a different direction for a new generation. Lippincott’s rebrand of Toys R Us gets an A for effort but unfortunately the entire franchise could not be brought back to life, as it filed for bankruptcy for the second and final time. Just to show that even with great design and fresh branding cannot salvage a failing business model in this tough competitive landscape.

            Now, lets dive into the luxury rebrands of the year, starting with Peter Saville’s Burberry re-design and re-branding which was pretty much torched through social media. A bit more than a departure from the original pattern and logo design, but the brand had not seen a new identity or complete overhaul in over 20 years. Therefore it was time for a fresh start and perspective direction that rekindles the brand for a new and more on-line focused crowd.  

Celine, Balenciaga, Balmain, Berluti and Yves Saint Laurent all had similar re-brands this year, where their word-marks fell into an increasingly homogenized styles, dropping all signs of heritage or historical values. Yet these design principles fall exactly in-line with the fact that a logo does not represent the entire business and cannot do all the heavy lifting that the rest of the brand assets, designs and execution touch point are responsible for. All the new creative heads at the helm of these design houses want to make their mark and presence felt. It’s their way of stamping the brands with their own signatures and styles.

"Minimalism is not a lack of something. It's simply the perfect amount of something" Nicholas Burroughs

As Thierry Brunfaut and Tom Greenwood mentioned in their article about this trend by calling it “blanding”, I tend to see it more as a back to basics trend, which places a greater emphasis on what the content and essence of the brand is rather than a focus on what the identity represented. Chanel’s word mark and monogram hasn’t changed in over a century, even though Karl Lagerfeld is currently at the helm of the fashion brand. Luxury brands today are adapting their identities to their past simpler and minimalist styles to both encourage a new generation of online savvy crowd, who really are not paying attention to what the logo or identity looks like, but more to what the brand stands for and says about themselves. When you have kids buying Supreme apparel for ridiculous amounts in a matter of hours, they are defining what luxury is, how it should look like and act. They want to carve their own heritage brands in their own self images, based on who they follow on Youtube, and Instagram, rather than what their parents used to see in Vogue, Elle or Harper’s Bazaar.