Loewe and On’s new hybrid logo proves brand rules are meant to be broken

A brand’s logo is a precious thing, not to be twisted, put against the wrong backdrop, or altered in any way that disrupts the visual consistency it’s designed to convey.



But for their new capsule collection, Loewe and sportswear brand On combined their respective logos, proving in four little letters that a break from best practices can pay off.



Typically, there are rigid rules around size, spacing, and separation when displaying partner logos, so neither entity loses brand recognition (think of the Olympics allowing the logos of its partners to sit next to its own). The Loewe x On logo turns those guidelines on their head.



For the collaborative sportswear collection, the two brands found a way to bring aesthetic opposites—a high-end luxury monogram and a contemporary logo—together as one.



Loewe’s logo, which Paris-based studio M/M designed in 2014 , is comprised of a wordmark, inspired by the work of midcentury book cover designer and typographer Berthold Wolpe, and a monogram made of four cursive Ls that mirror each other.



[Photo: Loewe]



The logo for On, a Swiss sportswear brand, takes a much different approach. The company uses a minimalist logo made of two super-rounded, bold sans serif letterforms: an O stacked on top of an N. The O has a small mark that looks like an on switch. For the Loewe x On collection, the brands swapped two of the cursive Ls in the Loewe monogram for On’s O and N. This new hybrid logo appears on the tongue of the collection’s $550 Cloudtilt 2.0 sneakers and as a chest placement on a $290 performance tank top. The $2,350 parka places the hybrid logo on the sleeve. The back of the parka shows both of the brand’s logos in full, and separate from each other.



A new era for collabs



Collabs like this have become an increasingly popular strategy to cross-pollinate fan bases and give designers the chance to dream up new products that play to disparate brands’ strengths. Loewe has partnered with collaborators ranging from Japanese ceramic studio Suna Fujita and the late American artist Ken Price to My Neighbor Totoro, a 1988 Japanese animated film, although Loewe didn’t create combined logos for those partnerships.



Combining logos is a bit trickier, after all. If you’re working with simple shapes, they might fit together easily, but combine them the wrong way and you’ll be left with a Frankenstein’s monster of a design with lost brand equity for both sides.



[Photo: Loewe]



When Nike collaborated with Jacquemus, designers only had to work with one wordmark and the iconic Swoosh, which made their job easier. The same can said of Tiffany & Co. x Nike , which rendered the Swoosh in Tiffany Blue. For Ralph Lauren’s collab with Fortnight, they swapped out their polo player’s horse for a cartoon llama .



Not everyone thinks the collaborative logo from Loewe and On is effective. “It makes the anagram kind of illegible, and it’s two logos that have a very different look and feel to them,” says Joanne Chan, global CEO of Turner Duckworth. “I prefer to see collaborations where there isn’t sort of a compromise.”



For others, it’s the compromise that makes the logo exciting. “In contemporary culture, ‘bootleg’ logos can hold more value than the original ones, as a thrill of excitement is attached to the idea of being anti-corporate, and to brands treat[ing] their own identity with humor,” says founder of M/M (Paris) Michael Amzalag, who didn’t work on the Loewe logo. “See the many Gucci iterations under Alessandro Michele or the zillions’ versions of the LV monogram,” he adds.



Ultimately what makes an effective hybrid logo, he says, “is the cultural significance and the visual impact of the parts that compose it.”



A successful collaborative logo isn’t always easy to make, but when it works, it can still retain the essence of the original brands while also playing into the spirit of their joint venture. In fitting the On logo into the Loewe monogram, designers were able to keep elements from the two brands’ logos visible and recognizable, but combine them in a novel way.