HUMMER Rebranding: Logo Development

rebranding New Strength of HUMMER Logo Development

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HUMMER Rebranding Logo Development

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NEW STRENGTH

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BRAND OVERVIEW

VISUAL RESEARCH

LOGO DEVELOPMENT

06 Brand History

12 Identity History

20 Initial Sketches

08 Brand Milestone

14 Logo Camps

32 Digital Sketches

15 Logo Competition

36 Logo Refinement

17 Logo Inspiration

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BRAND OVERVIEW Chapter 1

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Brand History Brand Milestone

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BRAND OVERVIEW

Hummer History The Hummer brand can actually trace its roots back to another

AM General's Humvees distinguished themselves in active

military icon—the Jeep. Designed by the Willys-Overland

duty during the Persian Gulf War in the early '90s. The vehicle's

company in the 1940s, the Jeep became so popular that when

wartime prowess garnered a great deal of positive publicity, and

Henry J. Kaiser purchased the Willys-Overland company in

not just within military circles. As a result, AM General (now

1953, the name was changed to Kaiser-Jeep. In 1970, American

under the ownership of the Renco Group) decided to introduce

Motors bought Kaiser-Jeep and renamed it the Jeep Corporation.

a civilian version of the Humvee, dubbed the Hummer, in 1992.

At that point, Jeep was producing vehicles through two

In 1999, General Motors bought the rights to the Hummer brand

divisions: the Commercial Products division in Toledo, Ohio, and

name and became responsible for the development, marketing

the Government Products division in South Bend, Indiana.

and distribution of future Hummer SUVs.

A year later, the Government Products division was spun off

The original Hummer, called the H1, was sold for a few years

as a wholly owned subsidiary known as AM General. In the

as the brand's flagship vehicle. Production ended after 2006,

early 1980s, the company, now owned by the LTV Corporation,

but Hummer has been expanding its vehicle lineup to include

designed a vehicle to compete for a contract offered by the

vehicles that still possess the Hummer bravado but with more

U.S. Army. Called the High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled

civilized road manners.

Vehicle (HMMWV, or Humvee, as it came to be known), it was designed to serve as the military's main light tactical vehicle. AM General won a 1983 production contract that required the delivery of 55,000 vehicles over a five-year period.

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The New Strength Logo Development Brand Overview

Hummer was the quintessential American brand—practical and well meaning at heart, but perhaps a bit too narrow-minded for its own good.

And while it's easy to decry the marque for being irrelevant and socially ignorant, to do that is to miss the greater picture: Hummer stands as a symbol of everything that we love and hate about America, and if we don't learn something from the brand's death, then we're more ignorant than those who failed to see it coming.

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BRAND MILESTONE

Earily Prototype

The Winner

American industrial conglomerate Teledyne anticipated the Army’s eventual need

In 1981, all proposals were evaluated against the Army’s

for a new vehicle and had already made rough designs for a prototype. According

HMMWV specifications, and it was General Dynamics, Teledyne

to Lustine Chrysler of Woodbridge, a local Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram dealer in

and AM General that were awarded requests for prototypes

Woodbridge, VA, Chrysler’s Defense division was also ready to compete.

The prototypes had to perform well on a wide variety of metrics, including armor penetration, deep water fording, and arctic/

The Teledyne was a rugged off road vehicle called the Cheetah, while Chrysler’s

desert operational ability. Though all three finalists performed

proposal was an adapted version of their Saluki desert design. A third player, AM

quite well, it was AM General’s Hummer that came out on top.

General, entered the fray with a fresh new design billed as the “Hummer”.

The Army issued a purchase order to AM General for 55,000 vehicles, which were to be delivered over a five year period.

Hummers were soon pouring off the assembly line.

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The New Strength Logo Development Brand Overview

Civilians Want In

The Great Recession

Due to a surging interest in the military version, AM General

Hummer’s success wasn’t to last, unfortunately. In 2008, as Americans struggled

saw it lucrative to develop a civilian model in 1992. The model

with the great recession, the brand’s sales shrunk by more than 50 percent,

was a beast, tipping the scales at a whopping 10,000 pounds

forcing GM to significantly cut back production.

and delivering less than 10 miles per gallon. It was nevertheless an early hit with Hollywood celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, and by 1993, AM General had established nearly 50 dealers.

In December 2008, the auto giant, which was hard hit by the recession, received a multi-billion-dollar federal bailout loan in order to stay afloat. However, it was a little too late, and on June 1, 2009, they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.Shortly after, it was announced that the Hummer brand would be sold. Unfortunately, there were no

General Motors

takers.

AM General sold the rights to the Hummer name to General

s for AM General, they lost their bid to build the Hummers replacement for the

Motors in December of 1999, but still continued to build the original military Hummer. General Motors built a new

U.S. military in 2015, marking the end of a very prosperous era for the company.

civilian hummer on an existing 4WD truck chassis, using the H2 nameplate for the first generation and H3 for the second generation models.

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VISUAL RESEARCH Chapter 2 Identity History Logo Camps Logo Competition Logo Inspiration

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IDENTITY HISTORY

Previous Logo

Logo with Slogan

Logo Combination

Logo concept

Logo usage

The Hummer logo is as simple as other car

They had used Hummer logo on flashlights,

logos. It is represented by “H� and usually

bicycles, coats, shoes, skateboards, hats,

with black background and white font or vice

laptops, jewelry, clothing and other items.

versa. Hummer logo got licensing deals from

Hummer logo never runs out of fanatics as one

many companies unlike other car logos.

of the prominent car logos even if it ceased to produce vehicles at present time.

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The New Strength Logo Development Visual Research

The Next HUMMER Logo?

New design objective The new logo design should have the stronge visual connection to the brand soul, embody the modern design with brand ductility to the future possibilites.

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LOGO COMPS

Toughness

Tactical

The three key words are respresenting new HUMMER's brand soul—Power and toughness, which also match the new vision of the new strength. Encourage people to conquer the challenges, experience the unlimited adventure to hone strength, power and toughness not only in body, but also in spirit.

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Adventure

LOGO COMPETITORS

The New Strength Logo Development Visual Research

Shield Shape

By researching the shield logos to understand how to embody the strength and safety from the shape of the shield and to synthesize the common usage of line weight and angle.

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LOGO COMPS

H letter

By researching the H letter logos to learn how to bring the brand soul and culture into the simple letter design and to avoid creating similar logo but keep the strong connection with the strength of new HUMMER.

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LOGO INSPIRATION

The New Strength Logo Development Visual Research

Future competitors logo

Most outdoor and sports brans are sharing more or less same value with HUMMER, about adventure and exploration of the world. By researching the life style logo, red and black are the most used color to representing power and strength, so new HUMMER will choose the similar color.

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LOGO DEVELOPMENT Chapter 3

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Initial Sketches Digital Sketches Logo Refinement

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INITIAL SKETCHES

1. The steel has the physical meaning of strength which has potential to inprove to be better.

Symbolic Marks: Toughness

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The New Strength Logo Development Logo Development

Graphic Marks: Toughness

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INITIAL SKETCHES

Wordmarks: Toughness

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The New Strength Logo Development Logo Development

2. The chess is a very good idea to embody mental strong with the tactical keyword.

3. The shield and the avator has the potential to improve into the tough logo camp.

Symbolic Marks: Tactical

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INITIAL SKETCHES

4. The arrow shape can representing the compas which has potential to improve into tatical direction and make sure the nagative space have the balance with letter H.

Graphic marks: Tactical

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The New Strength Logo Development Logo Development

Wordmarks: Tactical

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INITIAL SKETCHES

5. The animal shape or avator such as eagle's eye can improve into adventure direction, but it not strong enough to connect with HUMMER brand soul

Symbolic marks: Adventure

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The New Strength Logo Development Logo Development

Graphic marks: Adventure

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INITIAL SKETCHES

Wordmarks: Adventure

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The New Strength Logo Development Logo Development

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SKETCHES REFINEMENT The letter H has well balanced shape for logo design, and there are many great H logo already apply into the market, most of the shapes are based on the H or the combination of the letter H with the hexagon shapes. In this case, try to avoid the similar with competitors are very important while making an adjustment and decision.

6. The compass concept and arrow edge has the well balance for better improvement.

7. The shield shape combine with the H letter need to find the better line and angle for sharpe edge to give the sense of strong and tough.

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The New Strength Logo Development Logo Development

8. Compare to the shield, the chess is another direction for mental strength, but need to keep the symble simple and meaningful.

9. The dumbbell has the obvious looks but lack of deper meaning for HUMMER, which will make it looks superficial.

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DIGITAL SKETCHES

Symbolic Marks: Dumbbell

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The New Strength Logo Development Logo Development

Symbolic Marks: Chess

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DIGITAL SKETCHES

Graphic Marks: Shield with letter H

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The New Strength Logo Development Logo Development

Wordmark

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FINAL LOGO

Shield With H Letter

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1. The shield side edge need to be sharp and organic link to the vertical line.

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2. The negative H counterform need to keep the same curve with the outside sharp shield.

3. The upper and lower H need to be the same to keep it consistency.

3. The wordmark need to have the same change and angle adjustment like the logo, to make it with more personality.

The New Strength Logo Development Logo Development

Final Logo

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FINAL LOGO

Logo Anatomy 6X 20°

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20°

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The New Strength Logo Development Logo Development

Logo with Main Color

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Rebranding Typography Univers LT Gobold Caecilia LT

Design Lingzhe Kong 415527972

Instructor & Class Information Hunter Wimmer GR 604 Nature of Identity

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