When a logo gets redesigned, everyone on the internet suddenly becomes an expert. Instagram is flooded with “fixed it” concepts. The reality is that 99% of the actual work stays hidden. You have to navigate the budget, the legacy, the stakeholders, and the “no-go” zones. This is where the real job is.
I want to open the doors on one such case. When you are redesigning for a customer whose great-great-grandmother used the same bottle, you have to shoot from the hip first.
We explored five directions for AS Watson’s symbol. These ranged from a light touch to a total stylistic overhaul.
We put the logo on what we called the “modernisation scale”, which is pushing the mark from illustrative to graphic and finally into a purely iconic design. The goal was to see how far we could stretch the brand for the future, while solving technical issues along the way. Burberry for example, did a wonderful clean-up in this approach.
The real work was hearing the brand’s vision. We had to figure out what was sacred and what was just noise. We had to show them the map of where they could actually go.
Beyond the main mark, I built a three-logo system from a maximalist version with all the details for packaging to a hyper-refined geometric distillation for things like favicons.
So yeah, if next time you run to criticising the new Jaguar or Pepsi logo, just ask yourself what was the actual brief like?✌️
Tell me your fave.