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On Wednesday, crystal behemoth Swarovski debuted a total brand refresh via a campaign teaser film. It’s the 125-year-old company’s first rebrand in 32 years, so you could say it’s a big deal.
- The new identity will roll out in full across Swarovski stores, digital, and packaging this year.
- Agency General Idea (which has spearheaded similar identity campaigns for luxury retailers like Louis Vuitton, Coach, and more) brought the rebrand to life.
What’s the occasion? Two words: Giovanna Engelbert. Engelbert was named the brand’s first-ever internal creative director in May 2020.
- “It’s also born out of Giovanna as a designer, her vision, and her world. It’s a creative director-led brand now, and we worked in partnership with her,” Ian Schatzberg, General Idea founder, told Marketing Brew.
You’re probably wondering how rebranding what Schatzberg called “one of the top 100 most recognized logos” in the world went down. Well, you’re in luck, because we asked him.
On tradition
“If you look at other luxury brands which have taken a much more modernist approach—going to much cleaner sans serifs—we deliberately did not go that direction,” Schatzberg said. “The rebrand was really about going back to [Swarovski’s] history.”
On living in a material digital world
Schatzberg said transforming the logo for the digital age was twofold.
- “One is around the role of motion. How does a logo animate? How does it come to life?”
And the other, he said, is that logos are now vessels for “lots of different branding moments.”
“When we look at the actual octagon [framing] the swan, you will see the octagon reveal itself in many different facets of the business, almost as a framing mechanism for other sorts of content, but that often doesn't include the logo in it, because we [don’t] want to think about the logo as…a fixed form.”
On the new rainbow packaging colors
“When you shine a light through a crystal, you get a rainbow. When you go back and examine all the branding pieces, they are inspired by the fundamental material of crystal.”
Bottom line: Rather than sizing up the competition or trends, Schatzberg said the Swarovski team asked “What is the heritage of this business and where creatively can it go?”