Never start a rebranding with the logo

In 2008 the Stedelijk Museum issued an international pitch for a new visual identity. Five renowned agencies developed a proposal; the French designer Pierre di Sciullo won, and spent months working out his identity.

Then a new director arrived. Ann Goldstein didn't care for the chosen work and struck through the entire process. Months of work ended up in the bin.

What took its place was filmed by Lex Reitsma for the documentary De stijl van het Stedelijk. Designer Linda van Deursen says of it herself that the S-logo is "almost childlike": anyone could trace it.

At the reopening in 2012, the conversation was not about the collection, but about the legibility of that logo. Not because it was ugly, but because the choice rested on the taste of one director, not on a foundation.

The Stedelijk is no exception. Most rebrandings start at the same wrong end: with the logo. The brand feels dated, the agency comes back with three variants, everyone picks the prettiest. A few months later little has changed, except the letterhead. So what did you actually buy?

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A logo is saved-up recognition

Think of HEMA. The smoked sausage, the tompouce, the simple colourful things: you recognise them blind, and that is precisely the value. HEMA has designed in the same style for decades, and that repetition has built a brand that Dutch people recognise without a logo.

Marketing scientist Jenni Romaniuk called this distinctive brand assets in 2018: colours, shapes and marks that people learn to link to a brand. The value lies not in the design, but in the recognition that has been worn in over years.

That link grows through repetition, not through beauty. Replace the mark, and you set the counter back to zero. After that you pay again to make people learn what they already knew.

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What a new logo can cost you

Tropicana got the bill in cash. In 2009 it replaced the familiar orange with a straw on the carton with a glass of juice. Within two months sales dropped by 20 per cent, some 30 million dollars. By March the old carton was back.

Gap that same year removed its trusted blue square, and reversed it after six days of protest. Neither design was ugly. They were unrecognisable, and recognition was exactly what had been paid for.

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Sometimes a new visual mark is right

This doesn't mean you may never touch your brand. It means you know what you are touching.

In 2019 Mastercard dropped its name from the logo and kept only the two circles. Reckless, at first glance. But research showed that well over 80 per cent of people already recognised the brand from those circles alone. Mastercard changed the shape and held on to the very mark that had been built up.

A new visual mark is in order when something really changes underneath it: a new position, a new promise, a new market. Then the form is the flag of that change. The mistake is not changing. The mistake is a new logo instead of a change.

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Three form variants hide the real question

Which brings us back to those three variants on the table. It looks like a choice, but it isn't one. Three colourways of the same idea pass the real decision on to the client, dressed up as a matter of taste. Just as at the Stedelijk, where one director chose on instinct.

At Schwung we therefore don't put forward three form variants, but three strategically different routes: taking the pride outward, challenging the target group, or claiming a broader meaning. Those are three answers to the question of who you want to be, not three coats for the same answer.

That question comes before the design. What changes in what you promise and how you behave?

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A promise has to come from within

Look at what MediaMarkt did. "Ik ben toch niet gek!" came out of its own character: the price-fighter who doesn't take you for a fool. In 2022 the brand swapped that line for the international "Let's go". That fitted any brand, and so none. In 2025 the old pay-off was back.

Coolblue shows the other side. "Alles voor een glimlach" is not a line on a façade; it sits in the behaviour. The delivery driver, the customer service, the product videos: everyone makes that smile happen. The promise rings true because the organisation lives it.

That is the difference between a rebranding and a lick of paint. You build a brand from the inside out. That is also how the brand model we start with at Schwung works: first the conviction and the position, then the identity, and only after that the visual. The logo is the last box you fill in, not the first.

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Test it before you start

One test, before you brief a designer. Write down what changes in your positioning, your proposition or your behaviour. If nothing changes there, you are not rebranding. Then you are maintaining your brand, and then continuity beats renewal.

The Stedelijk could have used that test. It launched its big moment in a row over its own logo, because the form ran ahead and the foundation was missing.

Put the change first, and let the visual mark follow. That is where every brand project starts with us: with the question of what changes, not with the logo. Then the conversation is no longer about the prettiest of three sketches, but about what your brand will deliver from now on. And whether your marks carry that, or have only been repainted.