brandknewmag.com
20
Still, the Black and Decker redesign, by New York-based
Lippincott, appears to be an improvement; it received a
mostly favorable review from the influential brand design
blog Brand New. The site also included a nice history of the
company’s hexagonal nut logo, which didn’t survive the latest
refresh. Heather Timmons said the original one, introduced
in 1921, “says ‘farm to table,’ ‘I made it myself,’ and ‘quality
handicrafts’ all in one.”
David Yanofsky thinks the plus sign in the new logo is a
reference to a Phillips head screw. (I’m not so sure.) Jason
Karaian said the switch from an ampersand makes Black
and Decker resemble an architectural practice and adds,
Perhaps the most interesting choice Lippincott made was
the logo’s kerning, or the spacing between letters. From the
Quartz chat room:
Yanofsky:
disagree the Cs are miskerned
Mims:
every single letter in that logo lines up with the one above or
below it, along its left edge and yet the kerning doesn’t look
weird on either the top or bottom word that is a kerning miracle
some designer accomplished that and was like “my existence is
validated”
if you stop looking at the words, this is an extremely nice logo,
in my opinion
like, I wonder if part of the reason for the rebrand was they’re
trying to make the brand more international… in which case it’s
more about the form of the letters, for non english speakers?
Mims:
Yanofsky:
one C on the bottom is centered under the A above it
that kerning isn’t everything it’s made out to be
which they had to do so it wouldn’t look like DEC KER
look at “BLACK” on its own
so what this is all proving is that this logo is a master class in the
kind of compromises designers make to create a harmonious
logo
Yanofsky:
more like B LACK #amirite
Mims:
the kerning only works in context
cutting it in half like that nicely illustrates the balance it only has
when taken as a whole
i’d frame it as logo’s aren’t perfect
Mims:
true
but this dissection has been fascinating
would make a great quartz piece