StockXCopied

StockX did well out of 2020. The resale marketplace for sneakers, apparel, collectibles, trading cards, electronics, watches and handbags recorded $1.8 billion in gross merchandise value, more than 200 million visitors and a 90 per cent jump in active buyers, Campaign and It's Nice That reported. Five years after launch, it had expanded into Europe and Asia and added new categories, and in 2021 it refreshed its brand around a new logo.

The old wordmark had two disjointed parts: 'stock' in plain sans serif, followed by an X whose upward stroke ended in a green arrowhead, like a rising line on a stock chart. Chief marketing officer Deena Bahri told Campaign the arrow was commonly associated with the international symbol for male, and removing it was a push to include women and other shoppers. The new X is symmetrical and slimmer. The negative space either side forms two arrows pointing inward, which the company described as buyers and sellers meeting on a level playing field, and the shape also suggests an abstract percentage sign, a nod to the marketplace's stock-like price mechanics. 'Stock' is now set in a custom typeface whose t and k borrow cuts from the X, unifying the wordmark.

Around it came new product and lifestyle photography and a brighter palette of emerald green, coral, mustard yellow and blush pink, with collage-style mood boards. Bahri said it reflected a more mature, confident and inclusive StockX. The logo appeared first online and rolled out to packaging in phases.

Campaign added the commercial logic. StockX closed more than 7.5 million trades in 2020, and Bahri called women shoppers an area of hyper growth and focus, which is why the campaign showed off newer categories such as electronics and handbags. She said the logo reflected the aesthetic the next generation customer values, and that the rebrand marked the change the company had undergone in the previous two years rather than a new beginning. Framing it as catching up rather than starting over is honest, and it suits a mark that is a careful edit, not a reinvention.

It is a sensible tidy-up. The old arrow was a cliché as well as an accidentally gendered one, and the inward arrows are a smarter metaphor for a two-sided market. The custom letter cuts are fussy at small sizes, but the mark finally reads as one word.