Burberry Has a New Logo

The Riccardo Tisci era at Burberry is kicking into high gear. Under the direction of the former Givenchy creative director, Burberry revealed a new house logo and archive-inspired print today. Tisci enlisted art director and graphic designer Peter Saville to whip up the new lettering and throwback-but-new monogram print. If Saville’s name sounds familiar, it’s because the British artist is the same man who Raf Simons called upon to give Calvin Klein it’s own all-caps serif-less logo for a new era. (He’s also responsible for that Joy Division cover.) As with his work for Calvin Klein, Saville’s modern interpretation of Burberry’s name and provenance does away with any font flourishes or punctuation (who needs a comma when it looks cool?). It’s a graphic approach that calls to mind the rigid lines of the house’s iconic check pattern.

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Tisci and Saville also worked on a ‘TB’ monogram pattern inspired by the initials of the brand’s founder, Thomas Burberry, that will be used in a new advertising campaign—and presumably show up on scarves, as jacket linings, and in all manner of Tisci-designed merch.

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This fresh branding isn’t the only about face for the 162 year-old company. The new assets were unveiled on the brand’s own Instagram account, where in addition to the flashy new pattern and logo, the label shared correspondence between Tisci and Saville in which we learned that the project came together in just four weeks—and that Tisci writes very succinct emails. It’s a level of transparency that, while still part of a saavy marketing plan, is rare among brands that operate on the highest end of the fashion spectrum. At Givenchy, Tisci often let his work speak for itself and said little else about it. It helped create an air of mystery about the man and the brand, which aligned well with his dark, gothic-tinged designs. But Burberry isn’t Givenchy, and Tisci is smart enough to know that not only applies to aeshetics, but also his approach to everything else about the house. It’s a shift for both the man and this brand that makes his first show during London Fashion Week next month one worth getting very excited about.