Radioshack visual development guide

RADIOSHACK

02 VISUAL DEVELOPMENT GUIDE

RADIOSHACK VISUAL DEVELOPMENT GUIDE

INSPIRE

MOTIVATE

LEARN

TABLE OF CONTENTS

01 CHAPTER

02 CHAPTER

BRAND OVERVIEW

[ ]

06. Brand Overview 12. Logo Timeline

LOGO RESEARCH [ ] 16.

The Old Mark

18.

Competitors Logos

19.

Similar Logo Research

Visual Development Guide

03 CHAPTER

LOGO DEVELOPMENT 22. Logo Sketches / Refinement 32. Digital Sketches 35. Birth Of the New Logo 38. Typography 40. The New Logo Color Palette

[ ]

01

+ BRAND OVERVIEW

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Visual Development Guide

BRAND OVERVIEW

Radio Shack has been in business since 1921 (over 90 years) as a leading national retailer of innovative technology products and services, including personal, mobile, home technology, and power supply products.

For 65 of those years, they have produced outstanding electronics and technology catalogs with a wide range of products and services from leading national brands to exclusive private brands. It offers a retail service concept unlike any other specialty consumer electronics retailer.

Through its convenient and comfortable neighborhood stores, knowledgeable sales associates help customers get the most out of their technology products. Products from the RadioShack catalog were purchased by professionals, hobbyists, and everyday consumers.

RadioShack has created a loyal following of customers through their associates’ expertise and collaborative spirit with consumers, celebrating the longstanding idea that “two heads are better than one.” In a marketplace that is continuously flooded with new technology, it is this mantra that differentiates RadioShack from other retailers.

Brand Overview

[1] A RadioShack Store in Dallas, 2015 [2] Boston Computer Show, RadioShack TRS-80 Micro Computer System.

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Visual Development Guide

—You've got questions. We've got answers.

RadioShack Corporation--known as Tandy Corporation

easy online availability of electronic parts also severely eroded

from its founding in 1960 until mid-2000--is one of the

its reputation as a place for electronics hobbyists.

largest consumer electronics retailers in the United States.

Forming the company’s core operation are the 7,100 RadioShack stores located throughout the country.

RadioShack started out as a hobbyist’s dream, selling the latest gadgets and CB (Citizens’Band) radios, and that at one point in the 1970s it was opening up to three stores a day. In

The stores feature two main categories of goods and

those years, it also built one of the first early home computers,

services--electronics parts and accessories, and

the TRS-80.

telephones and telecommunications accessories&mdash well as audio and video equipment, satellite systems, personal computers, and other electronics products.

RadioShack has partnerships with a number of major consumer electronics and computer companies, including Sprint Communications Company in the area of telecommunications; Compaq Computer Corporation, whose Compaq brand is the exclusive computer brand sold at RadioShack; Thomson Multimedia, for a line of RCAbranded digital audio/video products and services; and Microsoft Corporation in the area of Internet access as well as the radioshack.com e-commerce site.

RadioShack Corporation also operates eight manufacturing plants in the United States and China that produce electronics products, most of which are sold in company stores; and a network of service centers that repair consumer electronics products and personal computers.

WHAT WENT WRONG RadioShack had been faltering well before the Salus episode.

Over the years, the chain gradually lost the distinction of being a popular hangout for hobbyists and electronics enthusiasts, who were attracted by the parts, manuals and catalogs it carried. Along the way, it refashioned itself as a retailer of cell phones and later failed to adapt to online retailing, losing market share to Best Buy, Apple and Amazon. Cheaper and

RadioShack also failed to adapt when its markets began changing. Many people who were hobbyists had less leisure time and so they weren’t buying as much, customers changed—the kids today haven’t even heard of RadioShack.

RadioShack tried to keep up with the changes in the electronics industry by constantly altering its offerings. they gave up their service orientation of having skilled and trained employees on all things tech. They lost their focus, and in the end it was an undifferentiated business and having so many stores, it is hard to make large-scale changes happen.

RadioShack still has a lot of brand equity; it is an iconic brand.

But the company faces a tough road ahead.RadioShack would have to do something exciting to make themselves look good, to make them appealing to the younger generation. They have to remodel their stores and rebrand.

Brand Overview

[1] RadioShack Store, 1963 [2] Moog’s DIY Kit

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Visual Development Guide

LOGO TIMELINE

1950 The store now has a room to showcase audio equipment such as amplifiers and speakers. The company begins omitting the definite article from its logo. Cool, at the time.

1921 The retailer gets its start as a small shop in Boston that sells ham radios. A radio shack was the wooden structure on ships that held the radio equipment.

It’s the golden age of radio, and the company jazzes up its logo to reflect the times.

The new logo screams the ‘80s as loud as shoulder pads and red leather jackets.

1940 1960

Logo Timeline

2011 1980 Alternative logo, which is used on some store signs. In this version the R is more metallic and seems to on top of a grey and red sphere.

This logo is solid red in a “funky” text style, with a space between the “Radio” and “Shack” part of the logo. Tandy Corporation used the same typeface for its logo.

RadioShack has recently started reusing the typeface from their 1995 logo.

The off–center R is here, with a cool, crisp logo. The ‘80s are over.

2013

1995

13

02

+ LOGO RESEARCH

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Visual Development Guide

THE OLD MARK

RadioShack is an iconic American brand for a chain of electronics stores. Over the weekend it opened a new store in Manhattan that it hopes will help it survive in an increasingly competitive environment. With the new store came a logo for the entire chain, formally announced on Monday.

The old logo was created by Landor Associates and unveiled in August 1995. Replacing a funky ‘70s logo, it introduced the R-in-a-circle mark. The new version keeps the circle mark, but replaces the R with a heavy sans serif. No design credit or explanation has been given.

The Old Mark

2013

While the font choice certainly steers toward more recent times, the abandonment of their classic red and black colors for washed out shades of orange and brown only helped to solidify what we all already know: RadioShack is beyond saving.

2015—PRESENT

RadioShack has recently started reusing the typeface from their 1995 logo.

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Visual Development Guide

COMPETITORS LOGOS

Through logo research, we are visually understand the overall concept and visual language from the similar brand.

To the general public, logos serve as an instant reminder of a company or a product; to the client they’re the point of recognition on which their branding hangs; and to us designers they represent the challenge of incorporating our clients’ ideologies into one single graphic.

So, be a good logo for the new brand is should be distinctive, appropriate, practical, graphic, simple in form and conveys an intended message.

Logo Research

19

THE INITIAL R / LOOK A LIKE LOGO

The logo’s design relies majorly on the font and shape choice.

Both need to be simple. So I also did some research for the initial letter R. I’m thinking about how people can easily recognize brands like McDonald’s and Apple just by the logos.

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+ LOGO DEVELOPMENT

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Visual Development Guide

LOGO SKETCHES / 01

KEY WORDS

Innovative: Bring innovation to life.

Interaction: Create the infinite possibility of interaction between science and life.

Build / Invent: Build and invent your own cool project, make your life more convenient.

CAMP 01 / INTERACTION

Logo Sketches

While engineers make technology faster, smaller and more reliable, Designer makes our life more meaningful, usable, and delightful. So, My logo design concept based on we all have personalities, and no one is exactly like another. Our relationships and memories are built on our interaction with other people.

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Visual Development Guide

CAMP 01 / BUILD / INVENT

Logo Sketches

We have a moral obligation to invent technology so that every person on the globe has the potential to realize their true difference. Every one can be inventor, build and invent their own cool project, make their life more convenient.

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Visual Development Guide

CAMP 01 / INNOVATION

Logo Sketches

Based on the new brand mission, We must promote originality, inspire creativity and encourage innovation. So, the original logo design idea should be build in unique and memorable way to be more distinctive and reliable.

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Visual Development Guide

LOGO SKETCHES / 02

KEY WORDS

Independent / Powerful: Independent living by DIY Tech.

Innovative: Innovative design makes everything special and unique.

Forwardness: Our new brand target is going to design an appearance of efficiency and forwardness logo.

CAMP 02 / INDEPENDENT/POWERFUL

Logo Sketches

CAMP 02 / INNOVATIVE

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Visual Development Guide

CAMP 02 / FORWARDNESS

Logo Sketches

CAMP 03 / REFINEMENT

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Visual Development Guide

DIGITAL REFINEMENT REFINEMENT / 01

SR

R

Digital Sketches

REFINEMENT / 02

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Visual Development Guide

FINAL REFINEMENT

Birth of the New Logo

BIRTH OF THE NEW LOGO

The new logo come with refreshing, distinctive and reliable.

It represents the rebirth of RadioShack, A simple and bold monogram that looks as contemporary. It is designed geometric shapes to present math and technology to make them appealing to the younger generation.

The color also plays an important role. The dark blue and bright orange represent energetic, use the math language to represent the scientific and technology. All these elements combined with the letter “ R “ which is also the first letter of RadioShack.

DESIGN ELEMENTS / TRIANGLE

PARALLELOGRAM

SECONDARY LOGO / LOGOTYPE

GEOMETRIC SHAPES

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Visual Development Guide

18X

x

x

90°

90°

13X

13X

x x

x

18X

PRIMARY LOGO / SIGNATURE

x

37

Birth of the New Logo

2X 8X

8X 2X

9X

117X

9X

117X

9X

13X

9X

2X 8X

8X 2X

LOGOTYPE

6X

10X

6X

28X

21X

10X

SECONDARY LOGO

21X

28X

6X

10X

6X

6X

10X

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Visual Development Guide

TYPOGRAPHY

Akzidenz Grotesk is a grotesque sans-serif typeface that dates back to 1896. It was the first sans-serif typeface to ever be widely used and it later influenced the design of Helvetica. Akzidenz Grotesk has a much lower x-height than Helvetica which is an easy way to tell the two apart.

I’m always happy to see Akzidenz Grotesk used on the web in place of Helvetica because it immediately gives the design a much more distinctive feel.

Like most sans-serifs Akzidenz Grotesk is ‘monoline’ in structure, with all strokes of the letter of quite similar width, giving a sense of simplicity and an absence of adornment and flourishes seen in many more decorative sans-serifs of the late nineteenth century influenced by the Art Nouveau style. Modern type designer Martin Majoor has described the general design of Akzidenz Grotesk and its ancestors as similar in letterforms to Didone serif fonts such as Didot and Walbaum, most visibly in the folded-up apertures of letters such as ‘a’ and ‘c’.

[ Akzidenz Grotesk ]

TYPOGRAPHY

Aa Akzidenz Grotesk Light

Akzidenz Grotesk Roman

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890~!@#$%^&*()_+{}:”<>?

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890~!@#$%^&*()_+{}:”<>?

Akzidenz Grotesk Bold

Akzidenz Grotesk Black

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890~!@#$%^&*()_+{}:”<>?

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890~!@#$%^&*()_+{}:”<>?

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Visual Development Guide

NEW LOGO COLOR PALETTE

Our brand colors were carefully selected to reflect the advanced , scientific and technical contrast of the brand.

Color is one of the important elements that represent our personality. Our primary colors are a generous helping to enhance our brand identity. The bright orange and blue provide a energetic and positive personalityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;everything that RadioShack stands for. So, below is the primary color for new logo.

Energetic Bright Orange

Scientific Dark Blue

Pantone Solid Coated Bright Orange C

Pantone Solid Coated 2765C

CMYK: 0 / 76 / 100 / 0

CMYK: 95 / 98 / 37 / 45

RGB: 255 / 95 / 0 / ff5f00

RGB: 33 / 22 / 69 / 201545

PRIMARY BRAND COLOR

New Logo Color Palette

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SOURCES [1] Chapter 1 RadioShack TRS-80 Computer http://assets.bwbx.io / Page 6 [2] A RadioShack store in Dallas, 2015 https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com / Page 8 [3] Boston Computer Show, RadioShack TRS-80 Micro Computer https://www.wired.com / Page 9 [4] RadioShack store, 1963 http://www.shorpy.com / Page 11 [5] Moogâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s DIY Kit https://www.wired.com / Page 11 [6] Chapter 2 http://www.blach.com / Page 14 [7] Chapter 3 https://staticassets.rti.org / Page 20

Copyright ©2016 Linyi Guo All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Design & Concept / Linyi Guo Copy & Editing / Linyi Guo Typefaces: DINPro / Akzidenz Grotesk Title / RadioShack The Visual Development Guide This book was created as part of a project for Academy of Art University 79 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA School of Graphic Design Nature of Identity / Fall 2016 Instructor / Hunter Wimmer