“Every initiative we pursue,’ starting February 1, reads the press release, ‘will be guided by our core value to treat customers as we would like to be treated — fair and square.”

In just under a year, JCPenney rebrands again. Out is Helvetica, in is Gotham. Also in is a whole new approach to store organization and product pricing.

Brand New article here, press release here.

Changes start tomorrow. Bold design move, bold ad campaign.

Some light reading. Graphics designed by the Saul Bass studio.

Found via Spokane7

‘This film was made by his company as a presentation to AT&T executives. It would have extended to be shown to the public, but a number of his ideas in the film were not ultimately adopted, like his phone booth designs, and men’s and women’s uniforms.’

Complete pitch by the master. It’s everything anyone ever wanted to know about how good logos and visual identity systems work. From 1969. Historical details here.

Found via Scott Stowell

I love canning stuff. And it’s getting to be the time of year to cram some stuff into bottles.

Pictured, logo design by Roger Estes for Marisa McClellan’s Food in Jars blog.

Love The Barry Gibb Talk Show.

New one aired tonite. Click to view/jump.

‘Can we add serifs to Gotham?’

One thing I like about Obama: He knows good design.

In 2008, his campaign lifted political propaganda out of the long ass slump it had been in. The fonts of choice were Eric Gill’s Perpetua and Tobias Frere-Jones’ Gotham.

And revealed this week: 2012 graphics featuring a custom slab serif version of Gotham.

So when The President calls wanting a font change, Hoefler & Frere-Jones were ready to oblige.

Found via Hoefler & Frere-Jones

JCPenney last ‘officially’ updated their logotype in 1971 – changing from a custom script (seen above) to Helvetica, set clean and neat (below).

1971

And last night – in a series of Academy Awards spots – jcp unveiled its new moniker (at bottom). Red box (retained from originally, their ‘it’s all inside’ campaign), lowercase helvetica, still clean and neat.

‘The winning design was provided by Luke Langhus, a third-year graphic design student at the University of Cincinnati.’

I do like when a redesign keeps the flavor of the original – here’s the official press release. Although this update does beg a few questions:

Doesn’t this look a lot like what GAP abandoned last year? And is the connection to Target’s brand a bit too obvious? And is ‘crowd sourcing’ how they went about this?

‘Participants included the Company’s associates, several design agencies and two art schools – University of Cincinnati and Rhode Island School of Design – that collectively submitted over 200 designs for consideration.’

I hope on the labor front, logo development participants were not as crowdsourced as is becoming commonplace. And it is a risky move to go this route – some could say jcp is running with what GAP chose to reject.

Though in the end, good merch behind the logo will determine what happens next. ‘What’s inside’ is still more important than not.

2011

1964 Penneys architectural drawing found via Vintage Seattle, click image to view larger, more/jump

3 – 5,000 year old vase, Coca-Cola logo. The work of Ai Weiwei.

Article here.

Found via Daily Serving

The photographic work of Mladen Penev.

‘about unnecessary items on the global brands’

Products screaming far too much for attention? Competition for shelf dominance taken to excess? Overdesigned labels that are trying too damn hard?

Antrepo breaks things down into simple. And then more simple.

More studies here.

Found via Laura Serra

Neatorama takes a look at Morton Salt, Jolly Green Giant, Aunt Jemima, Heinz and more. Article here.

(with an update on Quaker, above, here)

It all boils down to  . . .  Helvetica.

JCPenney started as The Golden Rule store – or so said the literature I read as a kid. Wiki says something else.

My mom worked for JCPenney for 22 years and they had a big anniversary in the 1970s. They had wooden rulers with ‘golden rule’ written on them as part of a anniversary suite of premiums. I remember lots of simple yellow (‘golden’) and black stuff, sort of a 70s take on Victorian style.

And I was fascinated with a logotype history chart that was part of a company history booklet. Above is an old photocopy.

Over the years, the company simply became known as Penney’s – logo treatments reflecting retail trends.

The possessive was dropped and the ‘JC’ was officially re-added in 1971 – the year its founder, James Cash Penney passed away.

1963 logotype. Stonewood Shopping Center, Downey, CA.

Found via jrdub1

‘With over 1,000 examples in categories such as animals, circles, faces, or science, it’s fun to browse and serves as a curious retrospective of American entrepreneurism.’ -Fast Company

Eric Baker and Tyler Blik wrote one of the first logo books I ever owned. And their latest is the densely-packed American Trademarks: A Compendium.

Snag your copy here. Read the Fast Company review (with related links and a slideshow) here.

Found via Jamal Ahmad

The secret to being in Sacramento, CA is knowing where the cool stuff is. And a lot of it is just under the radar. The right gallery on Second Saturday, the hole-in-the-wall that has the best burrito, what cool bands are in town.

Mark Bean started Secret Sacramento as a Facebook group. And it’s become wildly popular (over 3,000 followers as I write this) – and it’s spread to Twitter.

And launched recently, the Secret Sacramento website. The new site is kinda sparse – so if you’re local, login and post your own regional finds. Share your secrets.

where i fit in
In addition to designing the logo (above), I will be contributing content from time to time.

But shhhh, it’s all a secret.

A couple of weeks ago, I took a day off and drove to Fresno, CA to see Normandie. Nice small club, loud music.

Took photos. Click on them to jump/see larger versions.

‘Try playing the Trajan drinking game’

Eric Carl’s Flickr set here.

Found via Oded Ezer

New logo system and identity for the city of Gent in Belgium. What do you think? Article, critique and discussion at Brand New.

Detailed slideshow by Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio at Fast Company.

Found via Reserves on TwitPic

Plus, there’s some more Evolution of Logos charts at the Best Ad blog.

And, here’s a link to the ‘official’ Pespi rebrand strategy proposal [pdf]. The most involved snow job in the history of brand design. Worth downloading and  . . .  reading with awe!

This article really nails it:

How to (and not to) work with a designer by Daniel Will-Harris

(Nails it so well, I’ve posted it as a link as part of the Manifesto at my website)