The Evolution of a Logo: A Case Study of GPO's New Brand
In 2002, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) made a landmark move--landmark, at least for a government agency. It stripped its branding of the archaic government seal that is indicative of federal agencies and adopted a more corporate identity, with the goal of heightening its potential to compete with private contractors. Ron Keeney, now a supervisor at the GPO's Creative Services Department, went through the design process to create this logo.
Mr. Keeney received the request to design the new logo when he walked into the GPO on his first day on the job. "I came up with twenty-five to thirty logos. I would pick four or five that I liked and bring take them into my boss's office. We met once every week or two weeks, and he would make revisions on his favorites," said Mr. Keeney.
The concept design phase began in 1999 and was not made a top priority until the current U.S. Public Printer was appointed to lead the GPO. In 2002, GPO designer Rebecca White snuck one of Mr. Keeney's designs onto some temporary signage during an in-house event. The Public Printer saw it and told Creative Services to finalize the design and make it the GPO's new brand, establishing the rapid change that was about to occur at the agency during its move into the digital age.
Knowing that the logo should stand out as a black and white design, Mr. Keeney designed using only black. "I knew that the logo had to be used in large signage, but had to still be recognizable as a small icon," he said.
The final logo represented a mix of the old and the new. The G and the O were drawn in a serif font, representing a traditional typesetting style. The P is a sans-serif font, representing web-based design and GPO's move toward the future. The squares to the right of the O signify flight from paper to pixels. The fonts go from the traditional to the new and then back to the traditional, saying that "GPO is moving to the future, but is not forgetting its heritage," said Mr. Keeney. "The P is reversed," he said, "suggesting hot metal type."
The theories behind the design go even deeper. "By reversing the P and butting it up against the G," said Mr. Keeney, "I used some Gestalt theory, that the whole is a sum of its parts."
In the end, Mr. Keeney selected Pantone Spot 280 as the official GPO branding color, which nearly converts to the web's hexidecimal color of #002776. The final GPO branding standards manual does not require that the logo appear only in this blue or black, but strongly recommends it.
Today, this GPO logo is seen on business cards, trucks, brochures, and all other levels of GPOs marketing materials and correspondence documents. Of the hundreds of designs that Mr. Keeney did, the final was not his favorite, but a close second. "It is a strong solution," he said.
Mr. Keeney received the request to design the new logo when he walked into the GPO on his first day on the job. "I came up with twenty-five to thirty logos. I would pick four or five that I liked and bring take them into my boss's office. We met once every week or two weeks, and he would make revisions on his favorites," said Mr. Keeney.
The concept design phase began in 1999 and was not made a top priority until the current U.S. Public Printer was appointed to lead the GPO. In 2002, GPO designer Rebecca White snuck one of Mr. Keeney's designs onto some temporary signage during an in-house event. The Public Printer saw it and told Creative Services to finalize the design and make it the GPO's new brand, establishing the rapid change that was about to occur at the agency during its move into the digital age.
Knowing that the logo should stand out as a black and white design, Mr. Keeney designed using only black. "I knew that the logo had to be used in large signage, but had to still be recognizable as a small icon," he said.
The final logo represented a mix of the old and the new. The G and the O were drawn in a serif font, representing a traditional typesetting style. The P is a sans-serif font, representing web-based design and GPO's move toward the future. The squares to the right of the O signify flight from paper to pixels. The fonts go from the traditional to the new and then back to the traditional, saying that "GPO is moving to the future, but is not forgetting its heritage," said Mr. Keeney. "The P is reversed," he said, "suggesting hot metal type."
The theories behind the design go even deeper. "By reversing the P and butting it up against the G," said Mr. Keeney, "I used some Gestalt theory, that the whole is a sum of its parts."
In the end, Mr. Keeney selected Pantone Spot 280 as the official GPO branding color, which nearly converts to the web's hexidecimal color of #002776. The final GPO branding standards manual does not require that the logo appear only in this blue or black, but strongly recommends it.
Today, this GPO logo is seen on business cards, trucks, brochures, and all other levels of GPOs marketing materials and correspondence documents. Of the hundreds of designs that Mr. Keeney did, the final was not his favorite, but a close second. "It is a strong solution," he said.
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