As part of a larger trend in branding, or better yet, blanding, a growing number of high fashion and luxury brands – and other consumer goods and tech companies, as well – are looking to spartan logos, which are “designed not to stand out at all, but to blend in.”
“The new logo has a heavier, bold look with a geometric sans-serif treatment.” This is what Bloomberg’s Rob Walker wrote about the newly redesigned BURBERRY logo. He could, however, actually be discussing any number of recently (and relatively recently) revamped logos – from BALENCIAGA and BERLUTI to SAINT LAURENT and RIMOWA.
Fashion luxury logos have traditionally been used and have derived their value from their ability to enable consumers to easily identify the source of a product.
Logos meant to blend in? That is an interesting notion if you consider the practical purpose of branding in the first place. Trademarks – i.e., brand names, logos, and even colors in some cases – have traditionally been used and have derived their value from their ability to enable consumers to easily identify the source of a product and distinguish that product from those of other companies. Given the increasing number of brands contributing to the mass-simplification of logos, it is worth wondering what, exactly, this means, legally speaking, how we got here, and what the broader cultural implications might be.
Trademark Considerations
From a legal perspective, one of the key concerns when it comes to rebranding is the potential loss of trademark rights in a prior logo or specified stylization of a word mark. After all, trademark rights are amassed and maintained in many jurisdictions, including the U.S., as a result of actual – and consistent – use of a mark. As such, discontinued use of a stylized brand name or logo could give rise to complications even when a brand maintains registrations for such marks.
This issue is “particularly relevant if that previously-held logo was used for an extended duration, and was recognized and beloved by consumers,” as Sterne Kessler’s Ivy Estoesta and Monica Talley have noted. “At issue in such a scenario will be the need to establish trademark rights and consumer recognition from scratch in a new logo, which will take time and resources, and will also require ensuring that the new logo does not infringe any other parties’ already-existing marks.”
As such, “Companies that wish to refresh their branding but benefit from the goodwill surrounding a prior mark should consider modifications that update – but do not completely change – the commercial impression of the brand.” In such a scenario, “a brand owner may be able to rely on the doctrine of ‘tacking’ in a later procurement or infringement matter, which allows a trademark user to ‘clothe a new mark with the priority position of an older mark.’” While this “sounds simple in theory,” Estoesta and Talley caution brands, noting that the application of the doctrine “is more challenging because the determination of legal equivalency depends on whether the two marks ‘create the same, continuing commercial impression such that the consumer would consider them both the same mark,’ as the Federal Circuit stated in In re Dial-A-Mattress Operating Corp.“
At the same time, it could be argued that brands actually stand to increase the strength of – and the scope of protection for – their marks by adopting this less-is-more approach. As London-based intellectual property lawyer Birgit Clark told TFL, a brand “should always try to register a plain word trademark.” That way, she says, the distinctiveness of the mark “will rest on the word(s) rather than any stylization of those words.”
With that in mind, brands will be able to “go after similar or identical trademarks in any kind of stylization or in combination with a logo,” for example, as opposed to merely being able to claim infringement if the name and any decorative elements are similar. In short: the more distinctive a trademark, itself, is, the wider its scope of protection will be. From this standpoint, the new trend of bland logos bodes well for brands.
“Just Good Business”
Speaking more broadly, there is something to be said about the simplification of logos, a move that has largely been attributed to the desire of brands to use the same logo more seamlessly across multiple format – i.e., on Instagram, billboards, and shopping bags, etc., alike. In this way, creative director Thierry Brunfaut wrote for Fast Co., the adoption of bare bones branding “is just good business.”
The widespread adoption of newly sans-serif-centric logos is also likely due (at least in part) to the reliance of the same handful of individuals’ or companies and their aesthetics. Famed graphic designer Peter Saville, for instance, created both CALVIN KLEIN and BURBERRYS’s new logos and related branding. German creative firm Bureau Borsche was responsible for BALENCIAGA and RIMOWA’s rebrands, as well as recent bland-centric revamps for menswear site HIGHSNOBIETY and NIKE. The list of commonalities goes on, just as it does elsewhere in fashion.
Because a sizable number of fashion luxury brands are owned by publicly-listed parent companies, they tend to be increasingly risk averse.
Beyond that, the uniformity in design is part of the larger approach to modern fashion, which is becoming more formulaic, corporate, and spread sheet-driven. Because a sizable number of fashion brands are owned by publicly-listed parent companies, the stakes, from a bottom line perspective are higher, and as a result, they tend to be increasingly risk averse. Thus, much of what they produce – from garments to branding – is the product of trend forecasting and careful metrics.
Brands have opted for the straightforward, easily-transferrable, and super-scalable logo.
As for the trend, itself, it speaks to the larger state of things in consumer goods sales, as well. After all, consumers – particularly high fashion ones – are not necessarily shopping in the same way as they used to. The rise in omni-channel operations calls for is a “tremendous design challenge,” per Brunfaut, and as such, brands have opted for the straightforward, easily-transferrable and super-scalable logo.
More than that, an ever-growing percentage of luxury goods sales, for instance, are occurring online, where labeling tends to be clearer than it is in multi-brand stores, and this has had a practical impact on the need for – and the utilization of – logos. Look no further than the SAINT LAURENT Sac De Jour bags being offered up by Net-a-Porter. They have the simplified (under the direction of Hedi Slimane) SAINT LAURENT logo on them. The bags are also being sold under a bold Saint Laurent brand identification tag on the website.
This is demonstrative of the fact that the practical need for a super easily-identifiable logo on a bag, itself, is in the digital era is arguably less intense than when consumers were shopping in brick-and-mortar department stores. Whether that means brands should continue to opt for logos that look very much alike, all more-or-less blend together, and potentially, fail to distinguish one brand’s products from another’s (even if that is less likely than in generations prior), that seems like a negative.
The article was adapted from thefashionlaw.com.