Bulletins »
“Blanding”- the loss of value in fashion logos
What is “Blanding”? Blanding is the paradox of branding: it refers to the repetitive and growing trend of brands adopting similar minimalist generic brand identities. Think serif, black font and white space instead of a stylised logo.
This trend therefore seems at ends with the whole point of a trade mark, namely, to allow your brand and its values to stand out in the marketplace, to function as an origin identifier for consumers and to distinguish your brand from others. However, a growing number of high fashion companies are becoming increasingly minimalist in their approach to branding – with the ultimate goal being to seamlessly blend in, rather than stand out.
Several fashion houses have adopted the blanding trend. Where perhaps previous stylised logos have felt dated, fashion brands have been stripping back their stylised branding to a minimalist aesthetic, in a move to be inoffensive and keep things “fresh” and modern.
The trend of “blanding” involves basic fonts, which are simple to read, and are completely inoffensive. This neutral stance might have the benefit of appealing to more consumers and seem like a modern take on outdated branding which well-known fashion houses have carried for years. Conversely, it begs the question of how long this can continue until these brands become lost in a sea of sameness where all logos begin to look like one.
Is simplification bold, or is it bland? On the one hand, the registration of a plain word mark carries a wider scope of protection than a highly stylised logo, as the distinctiveness will be in the words themselves instead of additional design elements, so in this sense, the registration of a plain mark without its figurative elements would be beneficial for brands, granting a wider ambit of protection. However, on the other hand, the adoption of plain logos means a loss of personality in a brand. Where consumers are used to differentiating brands based on their unique logos, a lack of brand identity = a lack of brand pull. Should brands be opting for logos that all look alike, in the interest of keeping minimalist risk-averse branding, if that in turn means being at risk of failing to distinguish one brand’s goods from another? A generic mark is, after all, the antithesis of what makes a good trade mark. Effective branding should be about standing out against your competitors. This is integral in the highly competitive fashion industry, where the risk of counterfeit and copycat branding facing even the most well-known designers is high, given the fast-moving industry.
For now, it seems that “blanding” is very much in fashion. But whether this is a short-lived trend or here to stay remains to be seen.