A shiny, new Olive!
by Tom
We’ll kick off our blog with an introduction to our revised branding! Last fall marked the five year anniversary of Olive and Company, and we started to feel a little constrained in our old “clothes” .... ready for a fresh outlook for 2009 … a renewed sense of optimism.
This logo is, like, so mid-January 2009.First, a bit about the logo we leave behind. We still love(d) our original logo mark. It originated from type we set before we had even opened the doors for business. At the time, it seemed like it needed something to make it distinctive. With a little experimentation, we added the embellishment to the bottom of the ‘v’. To us it was just evocative enough of something growing — taking root — and it seemed like something no one else might have tried. Good so far.
But as the years went on and the use of our logo expanded, there were just a FEW instances where the colors we chose felt a little … soft. And the “and company” drifted off at times when surrounded by a sea of white. Small details probably only noticed by us. But it planted the seed of change.
There was a part of us that felt like changing our logo admitted defeat — like the original wasn’t good enough to stand the test of time. But nowadays, 5 years can be an eternity for a brand. Even household names refresh their look every 18 months it seems, and logos get swooshes and drop-shadows and 3D effects with each passing marketing director. And we really felt like we were evolving.
And then there’s the part about just plowing ahead without a lot of navel-gazing. If we were itchy for a new logo, it must be the right thing to do. And with that, we refined up until arriving at what resides at the top of this page. It has some subtle angular details that may not be apparent until seen in print, and it retreats from a couple of the idiosyncrasies that worked in our original. But if you look closely, you can see the echoes of our old “roots” in the ligatures joining the l, i, and v.
We decided to shorten the mark to include “&CO” instead of spelling it out to economize the space and make it a little easier to use in certain situations. We also ramped up the colors to something that got us energized. It’s worked well so far, and it feels right to us.