Landor & Fitch rebrands as Landor, reflecting sweeping shifts at the major agency

Landor & Fitch has a new look. The brand specialist has rebranded as Landor with a fluid identity that features visual, verbal, sonic and motion elements – plus, like Mullen Lowe before it, a serif wordmark. Earlier this year, Landor expanded its offering into sonic branding by acquiring sonic specialists Amp; the Landor Group already consists of architectural experts BDG and motion specialists ManvsMachine. The revamp holds up a mirror to how the agency has been altering its DNA for years in response to a changing climate in branding.

For example, Landor has been investing more in typography – its new typeface, an elegant grotesque (Landor Sans), is developed by its custom type studio in Milan. CCO Teemu Suviala says the Landor Group has been building on capabilities like these for the past five years, and will continue to do so with the help of technology, more specifically AI.

Much of this is due to changes in how brands show up; now brands that we encounter online are expected to be able to move through videos, to engage all of our senses and to live across multiple channels simultaneously. “Today, brands are – by their very nature – omnipresent. They are everything, everywhere, all at once,” says Teemu. (In 2015, Landor gained motion experts ManvsMachine in response to this shift.)

“That means we – as brand specialists – must offer a more comprehensive solution that recognises the new multi-faceted reality of brand consultancy, not only strategically positioning and creating brands but managing and measuring every facet of a brand – long-term.”

A lot of these evolved capabilities are displayed in the fresh Landor identity, including some silky smooth motion design. Water serves as the inspiration behind the work, drawing from the brand story that Walter Landor founded the company on a ferry boat in San Francisco harbour. A new core colour, ultramarine, links back to this story once more – a rare pigment that was imported during the Renaissance, often used by artists.

A serif was chosen to differentiate Landor from its competitors. “Our new wordmark combines contemporary serifs with subtle design features, to communicate both gravitas and playfulness as well as differentiate from the overpopulated world of sans serif logotypes. We are big and prestigious, but also open, welcoming, and fluid in the way we work.”