Long considered the ultimate in gift retailing, Tiffany & Co. was seeing increased competition in the luxury market and sought to reaffirm its status. Pentagram has developed new identity and packaging standards for the luxury retailer that restore the luster of the brand.
The designers achieved this by restoring the graphic luster of the brand, first refining the logotype and then establishing consistent application of the identity across packaging, advertising and other ephemera such as stationery, shopping bags, ribbons, and corporate materials. Most importantly, the new standards focus on the most familiar––and sought-after––application of the Tiffany brand: the signature “little blue box.” The designers have subtly redesigned the familiar blue packaging in a way that gives the bags and boxes a more luxurious feel.
The Tiffany & Co. logotype has been redrawn by hand to resemble a hot-metal typeface and reduced in size some 40 percent on bags and boxes, where it is foil-stamped rather than printed. The inside and outside of boxes are wrapped with a custom made paper with a luxe matte finish, so both they and the bags feel slightly thicker and smoother. The trademarked Tiffany blue has been updated to appear slightly warmer than the previous version. Print advertising campaigns make more prominent use of the color, and the most recent campaign centers solely on the unopened little blue box, positioning it as a treasured object in itself, before one even discovers the gift inside.
