The more components a brand identity contains, the more onerous it can be. Logo, pictogram, texture, color scheme, wordmark: each must be laboriously created, launched, and cared for, and each of these stages has its own substantial costs. For many companies today, these costs are becoming prohibitive. An increasingly popular alternative is a hard-working, purely typographic wordmark that speaks clearly for the brand, all by itself.
Case Study 1: Canadian Airlines
Case Study 2: Taco Bueno
Case Study 3: Avalon Hotel
Case Study: Canadian Airlines
One example of this trend is the logo Landor Associates created for Canadian Airlines (now owned by Air Canada). Canadian Airlines’ previous identity mark contained a boxed-in “motion mark” that sat in place of the second “a” in “Canadian,” where it effectively tripped up the reader as he or she tried to read the company’s name.
“With an airplane, readability of a mark is paramount,” says Paul Chock, co-design director for the project. “We knew we would need a face with a high x-height, as well as something modern. We chose the face Celeste; its thicks and thins make it a very rhythmic read.”
The elegance of Landor’s solution is revealed in the way Chock, senior project manager Bill Larsen, and their team wove the essence of the old motion mark into the new wordmark. The updated motion mark is essentially turned into a letterform with the same attributes as Celeste. It’s a subtle touch that produces a distinct sense of forward movement.
Readability was maintained, despite the sleight of hand. In fact, Canadian Airlines’ French-speaking customers (who would spell the name “Canadien”), as well as English-speaking customers, could all easily read and understand the new brand mark. “They felt it was proper from a cultural standpoint, and that it maintained the identity of the company,” Larsen explains.
“In the old days,” Chock adds, “everything hinged on a symbol, the logo. Today, support materials, like the photos, art and color a company uses in its designs, carry more of the weight.”
Larsen notes that Landor has created many purely typographic branding solutions for clients in the past few years. “You can really communicate a lot about a company just by using an appropriate typeface,” he says.
To design effective brand wordmarks, Landor’s Paul Chock suggests that you think of them visually, not literally. “You have to consider the combinations of letters in the name, including possible ligatures and other options, and look at the name as architecture or an arrangement of parts, not just an arrangement of letters,” Chock explains. “These are an assembly of strokes that can be scaled, colored, shaped and even animated, not letterforms that are sacred.”
Case Study: Taco Bueno
Where Canadian Airlines’ wordmark has elegance and refinement, Taco Bueno’s is spicy and colloquial. Created for a regional restaurant chain by Pentagram designers, the wordmark’s development happened quite quickly.
“We did the original design, the conceptual part, on a napkin,” explains Pentagram principal Lowell Williams.“Woody Pirtle was in [our office] at the time, and I asked him to draw out the idea. He’s a great illustrator as well as a great designer. The whole time we were working, the face spelled out ‘taco,’ but it was [Woody’s wife] Leslie, who is also a designer, who suggested having the face say, ‘Bueno,’” says Williams.
It’s not what you would call classical type, but the typography, pulled largely from the original hand-drawn sketches, communicates just the right flavor to the 18- to 24-year-old age group the restaurant chain wants to attract. With this design, Williams says, the chain went from having a middle-of-the-road image to something that feels much more hip.
The color scheme Pentagram assembled for Taco Bueno’s use offers a lot of freedom. “We basically said, ‘Here are some components and some colors, and virtually any combination of these elements is acceptable. Go do it. You can’t mess up.’ Spontaneity and variety are not the enemy,” says Williams.
While the wordmark is naturally played out in napkins, cups, uniforms and other in-restaurant materials, it is also used very effectively on Pentagram’s innovative designs for the exterior of stores. Large, flat exterior walls are essentially turned into billboards for the bold, oversized wordmarks.
Case Study: Avalon Hotel
The wordmark for the Avalon Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, conjures a completely different feeling: that of rest and rejuvenation. Its acronym says it all: “Ah.”
Created by Reverb of Los Angeles, the wordmark for the historic hotel had to reflect the building’s architecture, as well as its history of being a quiet hideaway for such stars as Lucille Ball and Marilyn Monroe. Retaining a retro look was a must.
“Since the Avalon is a 1930s Beverly Hills landmark with interiors and original tile work by Alvin Lustig, we wanted to celebrate its roots as much as possible while creating an identity that crosses timelines,” explains Susan Parr, creative director at Reverb. “We selected a squared-off sans-serif face, in part because the geometric forms reflect the hotel’s main exterior architectural features.”
A hotel logotype, especially one created for a design-focused boutique hotel, must hint at the guest experience the hotel offers, says Parr. This mark, constructed from a face that was found in an old type book, echoes the hotel’s strong, horizontal entry, the dominant square-patterned tile on its façade, and its modern, minimal and entertaining interiors.
A companion script face, muted color scheme, flower/atom element, and the “ah” tagline work together with the wordmark to present an inviting picture of the hotel’s offerings. “The Avalon’s typography was designed to convey the Avalon’s brand promise to guests: that of a hospitality experience and staff culture of design and service,” Parr says.