American ExpressCopied

The American Express Blue Box, introduced in 1975, is one of the most recognisable financial marks in the world. Fast Company called the 2018 work Amex's first new logo in over 40 years, which says more about how little the box had changed than how much it did.

The composition stayed: two bars of outline lettering crossing a blue square. What went was the radial gradient, and the letterforms were redrawn with type designer Jeremy Mickel so they render boldly and cleanly at both large and small sizes. There are single-line and stacked versions, each drawn for its scale. For tight digital spaces such as Twitter and Instagram avatars, a new alternate crops the wordmark to just AM EX.

The bigger ambition was a typographic language that could live outside the box, a bolder, more confident voice for the brand across products like the app and Membership Rewards. The work was done by Pentagram, launched in April 2018, and Design Week framed the goal as a more cohesive look.

The identity work sat inside a bigger launch. Adweek reported that Amex was rolling out a 360-degree campaign and a new brand platform, Powerful Backing: Don't Do Business / Don't Live Life Without It, built on a company study finding that 57 percent of people saw their work and personal lives intertwining. Design Week added the scale behind the brief: more than 112 million card members and 120 bank partners, and a goal of bringing continuity across physical and digital touchpoints. A non-outlined version of the logotype was drawn for use outside the box, there was more white space to make the brand feel open and accessible, and the identity was rolling out across all touchpoints.

Within Amex the pitch was continuity. Its marketing leadership presented the refresh as keeping the brand's history while updating it, and to most eyes the Blue Box looks unchanged.

This is a model of how to handle a heritage mark. No concept, no new symbol, just careful drawing and a smart small-size solution. The AM EX crop is the best idea in it, because it reads like the name customers already use.