The difference between Céline and Celine

In October, Dunkin’ Donuts announced it was changing its name come January, dropping the doughnuts to become simply Dunkin’. Although the company is keeping the contractional apostrophe, people are not happy – and not because the name change might signal a move to fewer carbs. Some commenters suggested the rebranding is a waste of corporate capital, that the name is more suited to basketball and others wondered whether the chain would still sell doughnuts (it will).

Similarly, Hedi Slimane got slack earlier this year when he altered the look of the venerable branding at French womenswear house Céline by dropping the accent and emboldening the text. It wasn’t the first time he’d made such a change. At Yves Saint Laurent, the house’s original monogram logotype of vertically intertwined initials was designed in 1961 by noted graphic designer Adolphe Mouron. When Slimane took the reins at Yves Saint Laurent circa 2013, the house’s ready-to-wear identity became a plain, capitalized Helvetica, dropping the “Yves” to read simply “Saint Laurent Paris.”

A memestorm of what Slimane later called “irrational reactions” ensued. The Céline (or is that Celine?) backlash pointed to the symbolism of the brand simultaneously deleting its Instagram history to start from scratch, and spawned tribute accounts such as @oldceline. The corporate identity seemed even more of an affront after an ad campaign debuted featuring dewy young artists versus accomplished grown-up women (for whom the clothes were positioned under previous designer Phoebe Philo).

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The main achievement of rebranding announcements lately seems to be grabbing the ink these name changes generate, filling dead zones of social-media marketing by cuing a buzz and backlash news cycle. Does the look of a label matter? If history teaches us anything, it’s that the eye quickly adjusts and the mind forgets.

Change happens constantly now, says Diti Katona, chief creative officer of Toronto-based agency Concrete. “It’s a topic we’re certainly talking about not only in the studio but with clients,” such as footwear brand Cougar, for whom Concrete recently revamped its identity. “You should not get attached to a logo. You wake up and your phone has changed, or an app has updated an underlying algorithm to how it functions and you learn how to use it again.”

For his part, Andrew Jennings, global retail adviser and author of Almost Is Not Good Enough: How to Win or Lose in Retail, has seen many luxury logo revamps. In his 45-year career, Jennings has worked with luxury retailers from Harrods and Saks Fifth Avenue to House of Fraser and Holt Renfrew. He’s seen logo tweaks come and go and takes the long view: When Yves Saint Laurent changed to Saint Laurent, he recalls, a lot of people wondered what was happening. “It looks a little more modern, sophisticated and up-to-date. The balance is how to ensure that it is in line with what your customers respect and feel.”

What function does a label really serve? They are sometimes, though not always, indicative of a change in a company’s design strategy and sensibility. A label is a strategic and coherent brand expression when it’s used across touchpoints, from advertising to shopping bags to the tag inside the clothes. And the subtle, but often distinctive, changes to label design over decades can help antique clothing dealers and curators date vintage garments, since they’re a natural extension of design eras and often updated to reflect graphic-design trends.

A label is shorthand for a brand’s personality. “It’s not just about the name, it is about the point of view of the brand. You have consistency and it has to represent something,” Jennings says. “But it’s important on an ongoing basis to look at these things and see if it’s still relevant to the customer and ask whether it needs updating. The updating can be very sophisticated – it may just be a smidgen. And in this day and age, if you want to get any talk or reaction or news, I’m not sure subtle’s enough.”

Of course, the beginning of one era delineates the end of another. These design moves, Katona says, speak to global aspirations and evolving strategy about what core values will be emphasized.

At Burberry, the tenure of new creative director Riccardo Tisci has been marked by the reveal of a new house logo that loses the serifs and drops the old horseback-rider insignia. There’s also a new curvilinear signature monogram print in bright orange, inspired by the archive, for linings and branded accessories that will replace the familiar Nova Check plaid (a relic of the Rule Britannia age that’s ubiquitous to the point of banality). Its rounded, interlocking Bs have been likened to pretzels and, according to one branding pro, manga art.

“With the black line around it there’s a bulbousness about it, there’s a playfulness to it. I think it’s fun and almost silly, almost poking fun of itself,” Katona says. “The old Burberry harkens back to old exclusionary luxury, and it’s very English. Their new look has a sense of approachability.”

“The production of cultural images is a constant activity,” Columbia Business School professor emeritus John O’Shaughnessy says in The Marketing Power of Emotion. “Sometimes they are new and sometimes they are resurrections and makeovers of old ones.” He explains that because new generations need to be attracted to existing brands, there needs to be novelty and imagistic reinvention.

“Like fashion, graphic design is the history of our culture – just in a different form” Katona says. To maintain relevance, brand labels and typographic structure have to be updated to cultural codes and shifting tastes. The only constant is change – and in a social era that amplifies everything, that will be accompanied by simmering outrage and the art of being offended.

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