Ebony Derrick’s ePortfolio

Ebony Derrick

Professor Tanya Goetz 

May 24, 2021

H&M Logo Evolution 

Logos are created to grab the attention of the public and make a strong first impression to the public. It gives the brand a unique identity that causes people to notice the brand as soon as they see the logo. The H&M logo is an example of a logo that most people from all over the world would remember as soon as they see it. 

 In 1949, H&M was founded by Erling Persson and made its first appearance, but was originally named “Hennes” which is Swedish for “hers”. The clothing company was originally to attract women. The first logo used a bold handwritten typeface, with a black and white color. Then in 1968, Hennes started to work with Mauritz Widforss. Mauritz Widforss was a Swedish American artist that created artwork of nature using watercolor. Hennes bought a retailer Mauritz Widforss, the store sold fishing supplies. Then overtime as they continued to collaborate, they became Hennes and Mauritz, a clothing store that sold clothing for women,  men, and children . It caused the logo to change to “Hennes Mauritz”, and the “H&M” logo in the middle in a rounded box, all in black. The company switched from a clothing store meant for just women, into a store meant for everyone. The typeface of the 1968 logo was sans serif, but the “H” had the same design as the original logo. But the logo only lasted for a few months until the company decided to make a drastic rebrand of the logo, making the “H&M” in a cranberry-red or a scarlet-red, which is the first time that color was added into the logo. It uses the same sans serif with the same design on the “H”. The changes of the color and the use of just the letters to create the logo was made to be more friendly and welcoming to their customers all over the world, with more affordable prices and more fashionable items. The final logo refinement was in 1999, the only major change that was made was a color change to make it a little darker to make it look like a more serious and luxurious clothing brand. The brand’s logo attracts customers that want to change their fashion styles but at affordable prices. Though the design was already made to look decent, the font was made to look more straighter and professional. 

As the company continued to expand, they currently have five thousand stores worldwide, with over one hundred twenty thousand employees. This makes H&M  the fourth valuable apparel worldwide, Nike, ZARA, and Adidas carrying top three. In 2018, H&M created an advertisement that included an African American child model wearing a hoodie that said “Coolest monkey in the jungle”. This advertisement caused two partnerships with celebrities to end, one with G-Eazy and the other with The Weeknd. 

Company logos are constantly changing its look, designs, and typefaces to look more modern and appealing. It allows the company to make changes that would help benefit them while catching their audience. For example, after the 9/11 terrorist attack, many businesses had to restart their businesses, which included fashion brands. Many brands had cancelled their orders of collections, causing the New York Fashion week to be cancelled for the first time. From the cancellation, the financial year income dropped from $876 million to $12 million. With the amount of income that the fashion industry has, it’s known that luxury is bought more than necessities.

The first H&M store, in Sweden.

First logo created in 1947.

Remake in 1968.

Changed in late 1968 and lasted until 1999.

The final change later in 1999.

Works Cited

“H&M Logo.” 1000 Logos The Famous Brands and Company Logos in the World HM Logo Comments, 1000logos.net/hm-logo/. 

“H&M Logo.” H&M Logo | Symbol, History, PNG (3840*2160), 26 Apr. 2021, logos-world.net/hm-logo/. 

“H&M LOSES ANOTHER CELEBRITY PARTNER.” 1 Jan. 2018, web.b.ebscohost.com.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=23&sid=e531e1a9-4414-43d9-8ee6-9e9e0affa552%40sessionmgr101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=J0E065413692918&db=a9h. 

“H&M.” H&M Group, 31 Mar. 2021, hmgroup.com/brands/hm/. 

“History.” H&M Group, 12 Jan. 2021, hmgroup.com/about-us/history/. 

N, A /. “No End of Luxury.” web.b.ebscohost.com.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=11&sid=e531e1a9-4414-43d9-8ee6-9e9e0affa552%40sessionmgr101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=12446910&db=a9h.

Ebony Derrick

Professor Tanya Geotz

May 3, 2021

Massimo Vignelli

Massimo Vignelli was an Italian Designer, born January 10, 1931 in Mulan, Italy. He worked on designs of various forms, which includes, package, houseware furniture, public signage, and showroom designs. He and his wife, Lella, are the cofounders of Vignelli Associates. He was one of the few people that created work that affected millions of  lives, New York City subway signage being one of them. He was a modern artist meaning he created work that would best fit in the time period that he created them in.

One of Massimo Vignelli’s famous sayings was “If you can design one thing, you can design everything”. He then went on to prove his saying by opening “Vignelli Office of Design and Architecture” in the 1960s with his wife, Lella, where they created famous products such as “Heller Stacking Dishes” in 1964, and “Handkerchief Chair” in 1983.

In 1967 Vignelli’s design firm received an amazing opportunity to design the logo for American Airlines. He chose a to do a simplistic design with just the two A’s, a red and the other being blue. The client for this specific piece wanted something more to be added so he decided to add a geometric “x” shaped eagle in between the A’s. Adding the geometric “x” shaped eagle helped many to notice American Airlines by only seeing the simplistic logo.

Though Vignelli’s biggest commission was American Airlines, his favorite was Knoll International, another piece he was hired to work on. He was given the opportunity to create a logo for the then upcoming company, Knoll International, in 1967 after his project with American Airlines. He was hired to create the background, and the entire identity of the company. He was given the chance to decorate the logo, stationeries, brochures, and the advertisements. It’s really understandable as to why this project was his favorite, he was given the freedom to experiment as much as he wanted to to know how everything would work together.

In 1972, Vignelli designed one of his most famous pieces, “The Subway Map” which consisted of all boroughs except Staten Island. The map was created through his style of simplicity of colors and perfect lines while still having all the information that one would need while traveling throughout New York. Though this piece is one of his most popular ones, it was replaced in 1979 by the city. They recreated the map to look more geographically accurate while trying their best to keep the simplicity and style that Vignelli first created it to look.

Despite the thousands of typefaces during Vignelli’s time, he thought there wasn’t a reason he shouldn’t create one himself. So in 1989, Vignelli was inspired to create his own typeface. He created “Our Bodoni”, which consists of a variation of Bodoni and one of his favorite typefaces, Helvetica.

Work Cited

www.knoll.com

www.nycurbanism.com

https://mymodernmet.com

https://99designs.com

 

Today in class, we virtually visited Nassau County Museum of Art Blue Exhibition. For this assignment we were told to choose three of the art pieces that caught our eyes from the exhibition.

The first piece that caught my eye was “Blue Storytelling Lessons.” I chose this art piece as my top three because of the use of the different shades of blue. The way the artist used the blue was very smart because each section of the dark areas uses a more darker blue, and when I looked around to the lighter parts where light hits the person and horse, I noticed a brighter blue. The use of one color while adding texture and depth to the piece must have been hard to do but it works wonderfully together.

For my second art piece, I chose a more simplistic piece, known as “Blue. A Virtual Tour with Director Charles Riley.” This piece caught my eye because of the use of the blue in just three spots and leaving the negative space. The blue looks similar to a purple and the eyes and mouth look from a jack-o-lantern with the use of the blue which I believed caught my attention the most. The use of the negative space made me stare at the image longer to see if the creator used the negative space to display a different kind of perspective besides the jack-o-lantern look that I saw.

“Blue Landscapes Lesson” was the final piece that I chose also caught my eyes because at first I thought it was just a blob of blue in the center surrounded by black but I then realized that the entire piece was blue. When I viewed the image longer, I noticed that the piece started as darker blue at the ends and move into a more softer blue going into the center of the piece. I found it really interesting because its not perfectly the same amount of one shade of blue around the entire piece. The more I stared at it, I noticed that the colors doesn’t necessarily repeat around the entire piece.

The reason I chose the image known as “Gordon Parks: Half and the Whole” was because it was very eye catching out of most of the images. The wording on the sign saying “Police brutality must go” was the first thing I noticed, the second being the date from January 7th to February 20th of this year. Police brutality have been occurring more and more over the past few years and always ignored or serious actions aren’t and weren’t taken with each case. With what have been going on for years before the pandemic, the signs and actions that are going on currently raises awareness of what’s actually going on in front of our eyes. The voices of everyone together since the pandemic to raise awareness have caused the cases of police brutality has inspired many to fight for justice for those who lost their lives to police brutality.

The first visual quote idea that came to mind was to create “slow down” in a sign that we’d see on an everyday basis. I decided to have the words share one of the same letters, in this case the “o” to have it be more interactive with each other. I chose the yellow sign to have it look more like a sign so the viewer understand that it’s meant to look like a sign.

For my second idea I decided to go with a bold but simple idea. I played around with the weight of this a lot so it would have some difference in the looks of it since it isn’t sharing any of the same letters. I added the arrow on the “d” because the down arrow went better with that letter than it did with the “w”, which in my eyes made it more effective. I also decided to add a yellow green background since it gives a more attractive look to it and the color indicates slowing down.

For the final idea I wanted to mix both ideas and add something unique to it to make it look and have a different approach than the others. I chose to have the word “down” in yellow because at a yellow traffic light, it’s indicated that the driver slows down. I added the down arrow to the “n” so it would help show the meaning of down. I took out the “l” because it looked as if there were two l’s in the word, so I decided to add a snail to represent the “l” and the “o” to help visually illustrate the meaning of slow. In this version I chose to have both words share the “w” because that was the only letter that wouldn’t affect the meaning of the other word. If I had them share the “o” the illustration of both words would have a different and a weird meaning to them.