25th
Linda Powell’s Return to Herman Miller
Last fall, Linda Powell went on sabbatical—back to her former employer, Herman Miller. While she was there, her main purpose was to “invest in the mark” (-Bruce Mau) that Herman Miller has used for decades.
“Investing in the mark” basically means that the mark is the most recognizable visual element in a brand’s identity system. Prior to Linda exploring future options for the Herman Miller logo, the logo and the wordmark were given equal “real estate”. Linda’s focus was to simplify the branding so that the mark itself was at the top of the visual hierarchy, in hopes that it will eventually read as “Herman Miller” while standing alone.
In order to show the progression of the mark, Linda applied her ideas to existing Herman Miller publications. At the end of her sabbatical, she presented over 200 pages of research and iterations on how the Herman Miller brand could evolve in order to better “invest in the mark”.
While on her sabbatical, Linda also worked on a corporate holiday card. When she presented her process on designing the card, it was apparent that communication extremely important in the design process. A holiday card will mean different things to different people, and making sure that it is politically correct is very important. Linda ended up using a list of holiday related action phrases, highlighting the letters in the words that make up the word, “peace”. She went through several lists of words before the card was finalized. Making sure that the words and phrases would be appropriate for a diverse audience was something that Linda kept in mind the whole time she was developing the card.
