2023-09-30 23:54:14
When I saw Johnson & Johnson’s new visual identity, unveiled earlier this month, I was angry—and when I read the advocacy behind the change, my anger grew.
It is true that J&J recently had a significant change in direction. But does this justify the change in brand?
I once heard Alexandre Wollner – the great designer behind brands like Itaú, Hering and Klabin – say that brands need to be reviewed “every two years”, but, of course, reviewing doesn’t mean having to change everything. Sometimes this exercise can indicate that the brand is doing well and is playing along.
But how can we consider the need for change for a brand that has been on the market for over 130 years?
The Johnson & Johnson logo we all know dates back to 1887 and was inspired by the signature of one of its co-founders, James Wood Johnson. The brand was part of the childhood of several generations, and is closely associated in the collective imagination with the comforting “baby smell”.
The classic precise lines and cursive typography have now been replaced by a somewhat more straight-faced typography, with a bureaucratic air and “office smell”. Naturally, this more serious tone abandons the feeling of tradition suggested by the original design, but before explaining the reasons offered for the change, I want to propose a reflection: why do brands change?
Beyond common sense, a brand is much more than a logo. Brand is concept, promise, product, service and, above all, construction. The logo is just one of its forms of expression, and its main function is to sign the company’s points of contact through a design that synthesizes the concepts and values it wants to communicate – and, consequently, sell. Which brings us to another important point: logos should not be literal representations of the products the company sells.
I always remember this maxim at lunch time. As a black pepper lover, I discovered that the manual pepper grinder, the one that we turn to extract the fresh aroma of the grains right away, was developed by Jean Pequignot Peugeot long before the grain grinder company started producing cars.
Peugeot has changed its logo more than 15 times, but has never used a grinder or even a car. The lion has always been there, representing values such as pride, power and boldness. And this will probably continue to apply, even if one day they stop producing cars and start building rockets.
It’s a similar path to Apple. Far from selling apples, its minimalist logo represents both innovation – referring to the fruit that supposedly fell on Isaac Newton’s head – and the desire for the forbidden apple, the one that is not for everyone. And it is these concepts that mix cutting-edge technology with the desire for exclusivity and make many people change their iPhone every new year.
Now, if a brand communicates values and feelings, we understand that it needs to be reviewed whenever a company changes its essence. We call this brand repositioning, and that’s what J&J did.
Previously, Johnson was seen as a care products company strongly linked to childhood, with baby shampoos and oils in its portfolio. In this way, its hand-drawn logo mainly referred to manufacturing and affection.
Now, the company has turned to selling health products, focusing on pharmaceuticals and medical devices, whose sales far exceed child care lines. And that justifies the change.
Even though I have attachment and recognize the beauty of the original logo, I understand that this intrinsic connection to the maternal and child universe, the result of decades of communication and brand exposure, becomes fragile considering what the company has chosen to communicate now. The fact is that the brand will speak more to the corporate world, relegating the look that we know to the signatures of just a few products for children.
My emotional side feels the change, mainly due to the loss of charisma and belonging that the original forms brought, with exclusive letters that were replaced by generic letters, without personality and that can be confused with any grotesque typography, that is, without serifs, common to so many modern brands.
This can be seen in the new reduced subscription (J&J), where the “&” has bolder and more eye-catching features than the “J” itself. I agree that the company’s repositioning in the market called for a review of the brand, but the path chosen emptied it of feeling. If the old typography activated the baby smell in our brain, the current one doesn’t activate anything.
The justification for choosing the look was the fact that “many children no longer learn to write cursive letters. People might recognize the signature, but they weren’t necessarily reading it,” as marketing consultant Laura Ries told Brand Equity. But wouldn’t that be every brand’s desire? Be recognized even before verbal reading, as happens when children identify the Coca-Cola long before they learn to read?
Finally, I agree that if the company chose to communicate with another audience, it needed to change. But a brief that asks to abandon the concepts of affection and childhood and start expressing something more serious and industrial cannot be worked on anyway.
The way forward, in my opinion, would be to design a new iconic typography. Even if it didn’t have the class of the original, it would at least maintain the feeling of exclusivity, with lyrics that wouldn’t be seen anywhere outside the domains of Johnson & Johnson. As it stands, there is a lack of affection and an excess of generalization.
Draco is a designer and illustrator, with over 20 years of experience in creating brands and visual identity. X:
Draco
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