When I was younger, I had a sheet of US Bicentennial stamps and I always loved the red, white, and blue star. Little did I know then that I would become a graphic designer.

The symbol, designed by Bruce Blackburn at Chermayeff & Geismar is a multilayered stylized five-pointed star. It folds like bunting. Its rounded corners evoke both a flower and a pinwheel at the same time. And finally, the negative space reveals a classic, pointed star.

A few years ago, Standards Manual reproduced the guidelines and I managed to grab a copy. Here’s a spread featuring storyboards for a motion graphics spot. I love it.

In Blackburn’s foreword to the reproduction, he wrote:

My deliberations led to the following conclusions: to begin with, of all the revolutionary “American” symbols I considered as possible elements in a solution, the only one that passed the historical reference test and, at the same time, could be utilized in a contemporary or “modern” way was the five-pointed star from the Betsy Ross flag. But the star is an aggressive and militaristic form, and the event needed something friendlier, more accessible. Why not wrap the star in stripes of red, white and blue “bunting”, rounding the sharp edges of the star and producing a second star surrounding the original? The two stars also refer to the two American centuries being celebrated.

Also little-known fact—Blackburn’s version was not the winner of the competition. Richard Baird, writing for his great Logo Histories newsletter two years ago, tells the story:

The symbol designed by Bruce Blackburn while working at Chermayeff & Geismar Associates is well-known and celebrated as a fine achievement in marque-making. The symbol would go on to be used on the side of the NASA Vehicle Assembly Building, on the Viking Mars lander and used across stamps, patches and all kinds of promotional materials, which accounts for its widespread recognition in the US. However, few know that Blackburn’s design was not the winning entry, that honour went to Lance Wyman.

Honestly, I don’t like Wyman’s version as much. Maybe it’s because I’m so familiar with the Blackburn symbol. The 7 and 6 are too abstracted to be visible, even to a trained designer like me.

Happy 249th birthday, America.

Oh, and Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv is working on the 250th anniversary branding for next year.

The British automaker Jaguar unveiled its rebrand last week, its first step at relaunching the brand as an all-EV carmaker. Much ink has been spilled about the effort already, primarily negative, regarding the toy-like logotype in design circles and the bizarre film in the general town square.

Jaguar’s new brand film

Interestingly, Brand New, the preeminent brand design website, hasn’t weighed in yet. It has decided to wait until after December 2, when Jaguar will unveil the first “physical manifestation of its Exuberant Modernism creative philosophy, in a Design Vision Concept” at Miami Art Week. (Update: Brand New has weighed in with a review of the rebrand. My commentary on it is below.)

There have been some contrarian views, too, decrying the outrage by brand experts. In Print Magazine, Saul Colt writes:

Critics might say this is the death of the brand, but I see it differently. It’s the rebirth of a brand willing to take a stand, turn heads, and claw its way back into the conversation. And that, my friends, is exactly what Jaguar needed to do.

With all due respect to Mr. Colt—and he does make some excellent points in his piece—I’m not in the camp that believes all press is good press. If Jaguar wanted to call attention to itself and make a statement about its new direction, it didn’t need to abandon its nearly 90 years of heritage to do so. A brand is a company’s story over time. Jeff Bezos once said, “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” I’m not so sure this rebrand is leaving the right impression.

Here’s the truth: the average tenure of a chief marketing officer tends to be a short four years, so they feel as if they need to prove their worth by paying for a brand redesign, including a splashy new website and ad campaign filled with celebrities. But branding alone does not turn around a brand—a better product does. Paul Rand, one of the masters of logo design and branding, once said:

A logo derives its meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way around. A logo is less important than the product it signifies; what it means is more important than what it looks like.

It’s the thing the logo represents and the meaning instilled in it by others. In other words, it’s not the impression you make but the impression you’re given.

There were many complaints about the artsy, haute couture brand film to introduce their new “Copy Nothing” brand ethos. The brand strategy itself is fine, but the execution is terrible. As my friend and notable brand designer Joe Stitzlein says, “At Nike, we used to call this ‘exposing the brief to the end user.’” Elon Musk complained about the lack of cars in the spot, trolling with “Do you sell cars?” Brand campaigns that don’t show the product are fine as long as the spot reinforces what I already know about the brand, so it rings authentic. Apple’s famous “Think Different” ad never showed a computer. Sony’s new Playstation “Play Has No Limits” commercial shows no gameplay footage.

Apple’s famous “Think Different” ad never showed a computer.

Sony’s recent Playstation “Play Has No Limits” commercial doesn’t show any gameplay footage.

All major automakers have made the transition to electric. None have thrown away their brands to do so. Car marques like Volkswagen, BMW, and Cadillac have made subtle adjustments to their logos to signify an electrified future, but none have ditched their heritage.

Volkswagen’s logo redesign in 2019

BMW’s logo redesign in 2020

Instead, they’ve debuted EVs like the Mustang Mach E, the Lyriq, and the Ioniq 5. They all position these vehicles as paths to the future.

Mr. Colt:

The modern car market is crowded as hell. Luxury brands like Porsche and Tesla dominate mindshare, and electric upstarts are making disruption their personal brand. Jaguar was stuck in a lane of lukewarm association: luxury-ish, performance-ish, but ultimately not commanding enoughish to compete.

Hyundai built a splashy campaign around the Ioniq 5, but they didn’t do a rebrand. Instead, they built a cool-looking, retro-future EV that won numerous awards when it launched, including MotorTrend’s 2023 SUV of the Year.

We shall see what Jaguar unveils on December 2. The only teaser shot of the new vehicle concept does look interesting. But the conversation has already started on the wrong foot.

Update

December 3, 2024

As expected, Jaguar unveiled their new car yesterday. Actually, it’s not a new car, but a new concept car called Type 00. If you know anything about concept cars, they are never what actually ships. By the time you add the required safety equipment, including side mirrors and bumpers, the final car a consumer will be able to purchase will look drastically different.

Putting aside the aesthetics of the car, the accompanying press release is full of pretension. Appropriate, I suppose, but feels very much like they’re pointing out how cool they are rather than letting the product speak for itself.

Update 2

December 9, 2024

Brand New has weighed in with a review of the rebrand. Armin Vit ends up liking the work overall because it did what it set out to do—create conversation. However, his readers disagree. As of this writing, the votes are overwhelmingly negative while the comments are more mixed.

Designing since 1985

I’ve been a designer for as long as I can remember. I usually like to say that I started in the seventh grade, after being tenacious enough to badger my father into buying my first Macintosh computer and then spending hours noodling in MacPaint and MacDraw. Pixel by pixel, I painstakingly drew Christopher Columbus’s ship, the Santa Maria, for a book report cover. I observed the lines of the parabolic exterior of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, known colloquially in San Francisco as “the washing machine,” and replicated them in MacDraw. Of course, that’s not design, but that was the start of my use of the computer to make visuals that communicate. Needless to say, I didn’t know what brand strategy even was, or why it’s important, but we’ll get there.

Screenshot of MacPaint (1984)

Amateur hour

The first real logo I designed was for a friend of mine who ran a computer consulting company consisting of only himself. Imagine the word “MacSpect” set in Garamond, with a black square preceding it and then a wave running through the shape and logotype, inverted out of the letters. I thought it was the coolest thing in 1992. But it meant nothing. There was no concept behind it. It borrowed Garamond from Apple’s official typeface at the time, and the invert technique was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Author’s attempt at recreating his first logo from memory, 32 years later

Concept is king

Fast-forward to my first real design job after design school. One of my early projects was to design a logo for Levi’s. It was not to be their official corporate logo, but instead, it was for a line of clothing called Americana. It would be used on hangtags and retail store signage. I ended up designing a distressed star—grunge was the shit in the mid-1990s—with a black and white inverted bottle cap pattern behind it. (There’s that inverting again!) Even though this was just as trendy as my student-level MacSpect logo, this mark worked. You see, the Levi’s brand has always been rooted in American authenticity, with its history going back to the Gold Rush in the mid-1800s. The distress in the logo represented history. The star shape was a symbol of America. And the pattern in the circle is straight from the label on every pair of Levi’s jeans.

This logo worked because it was rooted in a concept, or put another way, rooted in strategy. And this is where I learned why brand strategy was important to design.

Why is brand strategy important? Why does it matter?

Designing something visually appealing is easy. Find some inspiration on Instagram, Dribbble, or Behance, put your spin on it, and call it a day. But what you create won’t be timeless. In fact, its shelf life will be as long as the trend lasts. A year? Two at best?

Trends like neumorphism come and go quickly

But if your design is rooted in brand strategy—concepts representing the essence of the brand you’re designing for—your creation will last longer. (I won’t say forever because eventually, all logos are redesigned, usually based on the whims of the new marketing person who takes charge.)

Brand strategy is the art of distilling a brand

Big design, branding, marketing, or advertising agencies have dedicated brand strategists. Clients pay a premium for their expertise because they can distill the essence of a brand into key pillars. The process is not unlike talking to a friend about a problem and then having them get to the heart of the matter because they know you and have an objective point of view. For a client, seeing excellent brand strategy deliverables is often jaw-dropping because strategists can articulate the brand better than they can. Their secret isn’t telling clients something they don’t know. Instead, the secret is revealing what they know in their hearts but can’t express.

Brand strategists work their magic by being therapists to clients. (Midjourney)

How do brand strategists work their magic? Through research and by acting as therapists, in a way. They listen and then reflect what they hear and learn.

Branding is more than just creative work

The brand insights articulated by brand strategists are typically used to inform the creative work. From logos to slogans, from landing pages to Instagram posts, all the creative is rooted in the pillars of the brand. So then, the brand’s audience experiences a consistent voice.

However, what clients find most valuable is the illumination of their brand purpose and company mission. You see, brand strategy also crosses into business strategy. They’re not one and the same, but there is overlap. The purpose and mission of a company help align employees and partners. They help with product or service development—the very future of the company.

This is why Simon Sinek’s “Start with why” talk from 2009 resonated with so many business leaders. It’s about purpose and mission. Why also happens to be the root of great branding.

Brand strategy is the foundation for building brands—and the companies they represent. And the partner agencies that create that brand strategy for them are invaluable.

Offering brand strategy can propel you from “vendor” to “partner”

Clients will call freelancers and agencies “vendors,” lumping them into the same category as those who sell them copy paper. To transcend from being thought of as a vendor to being a partner, offering brand strategy is crucial.

Nearly all clients not listed in the Fortune 500 will not know what is brand strategy, nor why is brand strategy important. But once they see it, they’ll come to appreciate it.

This shift demands not just skill but a change in mindset. As a freelancer or small agency owner, your value lies in weaving brand stories, not just creating aesthetically pleasing designs and building websites. Your work should mirror the brand’s ethos and vision, making you an essential part of your client’s journey.

Yesterday the design and advertising community was abuzz over the leaked presentation deck (PDF) for the new Pepsi logo by the Arnell Group. Yes it is absolutely a work of pure horseshit. But, I was reminded of the decks that my colleagues and I create every day and how somebody’s horseshit may be someone else’s chocolate cake.

We all have to sell our work. Ideally the concepts and ideas come from a well-formed strategy, but that doesn’t always happen. Many times the strategy must back into the creative. In other words sometimes you might have a great idea that you’ll need to justify after the fact.

This is even more true if you’re dealing with a purely formal exercise such as redesigning an iconic logo like Pepsi’s. A good design strategy would be to do the due diligence and look at the different historical variations of the logo and then just have at it, coming up with dozens if not hundreds of iterations. But afterwards when you find the new design you subjectively like, you’re going to need to explain in an intelligent, tangible, evidence-based manner detailing how you arrived at that solution—especially if you’re getting paid $1 million for the effort. So that’s when you break out the horses and shovels.

(via Brand New)

Update: Validation that the Arnell strategy deck is all BS from a freelancer:

(the logo design) nothing to do with any of that bullshit on the PDF, that was (I believe) just a way to keep the client entertained (like we, viewers of this PDF were) and make them feel like their money (1.2B) was worth something.