Pen Shop- Logotype

Logotype is a single piece of type that prints a work, a group of separate letters or a logo. so basically is a logo that uses just words and letters, simple yet effective for any companies.

We have to rebrand a company and create 5 different logotypes for it, it has to be a company in an international company with a store in Leeds. This means the logo must be bilingual and able to be recognised world wide, also as there is a store in leeds it means we can visit the store first hand to get an idea for the feel of it and see their client base.


The other idea i had for the shop was the redesign and rebrand 'the pen shop' this is because the logo for this shop is very similar in colour, font and shape to the more popular Gap store, when you walk past/look at the logo you think of Gap rather than The Pen Shop. This means it doesn't stand out or look different, i want to change this so the logo stands out and creates a new different identity for the shop. The idea of a pen shop leaves a lot of ideas for type, handwritten or digital both sans serif or serif, Pen/writing theme is mostly based around the idea of type so a logotype would work well for this brief too.

After looking at the logo in detail i decided to visit the shops themselves to get a more in-depth idea of how the branding is used in the shops, how the logo is seen, the target audiences, how popular the shops were. Both shops are located in trinity shopping centre, the River Island is a massive shop with 2 floors near the entrance to the centre where are The Pen Shop is a smaller, single floor shop in on  the top floor, away from the busy centre. This meant that The Pen Shop was a lot less busy than the River Island or New Look stores, The Pen Shop had one customer in at the same time as me, the other were very busy and i couldn't count the amount of people in the store. I went on a Sunday afternoon (this may have been a factor but i picked a time most people would be off work). I got a feel from the New Look and River Island stores that this branding although i didn't like it worked well because of the large amount of people inside, also before this project i had heard about the stores so the advertising was massive. Where as i had to research shops in the Trinity before finding the Pen shop, this mean i'd never heard or seen of it before so the branding and the adverting for this company was clearly less strong.

I've picked the Pen Shop as my project because i feel its logo get so long in the Gap logo that a rebrand will give it more individuality and a new look.

Inside The Pen Shop

I also collected a Pen Shop Issue which is their catalogue of all their products, this will give me an insight into their customer base and what they sell which will be useful for helping me rebrand the company.

For visiting the shop i can see that their target market is an older probably more middle class man who may work in a office of some kind therefore would need a pen that writes well and reflects him.   The pens they sell are very expensive luxury designer items, they show elegance and wealth so the target market must take a lot of pride in appearance. This is seen by buying such an expensive pen as they want it to write beautifully to reflect them and give off a look or importance . The shop uses adverts with older smart attractive male celebrities in them, this is because they want their audience to look up to these men and feel these are the kind of men the audience what to be. Its a very blue, white and black shop sticking to the strict colour scheme in all the displays and typography. The navy blue shows class and luxury while being manly and powerful at the same time, its also a classic colour that shows wealth and links to the colour of ink which is mostly blue. i think the navy is a very appropriate colour for the shop because of this. 

NEW LOGO


Also visiting this shop i could see that it was very dead and almost unwelcoming to a younger audience, they staff were very shocked to see me and while i was in there at least half an hour on a busy Sunday there was only one other customer in at the time. I feel like the shop see themselves as very unique and important, they are an exclusive shop with a very specific audience and only advertise to them. I might  try to create a logo that includes a larger audience to try and show people calligraphy and new pen styles can be fashionable yet modern, this logo will aim to inspire people to buy a pen and try it themselves.