The late Milton Glaser, the designer behind the world famous I ❤️ NY logo, once quipped, "A logo is the point of entry to the brand." Indeed.
The most successful companies get it right. The logo they choose is appropriate for their product, their company ethos, and their industry.
So as a visual designer who gets enamored by logos I came across a clothing company based here in Southern California named VUORI. For all of you who are not familiar with the brand, it's a contemporary line of well designed, great fitting athleisure for both men and women. I have bought a few pieces. I wore them and loved them. Comfortable, well fitting and well priced. Their minimalist approach and great fit kept me coming back for more, however the logo on all of it kept pushing me away. I was puzzled and confused. How does a company with such a clean website, with great photography and great clothes, did not nurture their logo over the years?
I get it, when you first start off you try to go with something that you feel is appropriate. And that's probably what happened here. Imagine if APPLE, the most valuable company in the world stayed with their original logo back in 1976. It would be quite challenging and (ugly) to put a stenciled design of an apple tree on your new AirPods Pro.
But evolve you must, and as you narrow the focus, it is imperative to revaluate your branding and so forth. I personally avoid logo laden clothes to begin with, and every time I would go into the VUORI store I would seek out the simplest and non branded merchandise I could find.
Their logo is not utterly offensive - they use one of my favorite classic fonts for their wordmark, but just because you use a nice font, does not necessarily mean that it's the right font for your company. And I never understood the fuzzy color gradient. It looks good in concept, perhaps on a billboard or other print campaign and video but it does not translate to fabric logo tags. And I won't even comment on the mark which to me looks so off balanced, lacking proportion and intellectual elegance.
THE CURRENT VUORI IDENTITY
So as any designer who gets bothered enough by something, we try to change it or redesign it and then envision it coming to life, not just for ourselves but for all our fellow design obsessed humans.
After delving a little deeper into the VUORI ecosystem, and going through their website and product line up, I came up with what I believe, is a more appropriate brand identity that retains the company's DNA without changing it or alienating their current clientele.
As you can see, I am not reinventing the wheel, I am simply showing what evolution could look like for a brand with so much potential.
There are plenty of new brands out there that have the opposite problem - Great branding with a crappy product.
VUORI is in the position to have it all.
You can view my proposed redesign below.
- Christos Joannides
PROPOSED REFRESH BY CHRISTOS JOANNIDES
