Established in 1819, Easons & Sons, the newsagent and bookseller, has always used design to express its modernity rather than its tradition.
Its new graphic identity indicates more concern with longevity. The logo is still modern, but in a classical way, as it refers to a tradition of modern graphics.
Created by Fitch, a London-based design company, it is the result of research into how people perceive Easons and tries to express the company’s values of accessibility and clarity.
The logo is broadly based on the revolutionary typography that appeared in Holland and Germany in the 1920s. Based on geometric shapes, it found its most radical expression in Herbert Bayer’s Universal typeface. Lacking an upper case, it was too extreme to be broadly adopted, but versions of it have become popular recently, particularly for logo design.
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Like Universal, the Easons logo is clearly based on geometric forms — the o is a circle, the n a simple curve. But the s is more dynamic, differentiating itself by its more angular form, and making the entire logo more legible — the irony of Bayer’s supposedly functional Universal was that there was so little difference between the letters that its legibility was compromised. Many sans serif faces can look very severe, but the curves and zigzag of the Easons logo give it a warmth that seems suited to its democratic image.
The logo succeeds not only in terms of its good looks but also in its legibility, which it retains when reproduced at a small scale; always a problem with the old, chunkier logo.
Given how long it took Easons to correct its past mistakes, the classicism of the new logo is sensible. If it is still around in 20 years, it’s likely not to show its age quite so conspicuously as the outgoing logo.
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