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New Branding for Crane by Collins – BP&O

Logo, branding and packaging for the American stationery brand Crane designed by Collins

Text by Richard Baird

Time. This is a central prerequisite for Collins’ work for the American stationery brand Crane, especially for the bookmarking of the past and the present as well as for a meditation on “concrete” as a time machine for the future. It is a reflection of what it means to put something on paper and what makes something last.

Logo, branding and packaging for the American stationery brand Crane designed by Collins

The past. Stephen Crane started the Crane paper business in 1770 and bought the Liberty Paper Mill in Dalton, Massachusetts. Paul Revere was one of Crane’s first customers to use his paper to print the first paper money for the American colonies. By 1801, Crane was the main producer of banknote paper for local and regional banks and eventually for the US government. This cemented Crane’s presence in everyday American life.

Logo, branding and packaging for the American stationery brand Crane designed by Collins

The gift. Crane pays tribute to its legacy by continuing to offer a wide range of carefully crafted products that “give” customers moments of thoughtful reflection and beautiful communication “based on time and space”. In today’s fast-paced field of digital communication, the material, the substrate, ink on paper, becomes a deeper gesture. It focuses the mind, increases awareness and the ability to generate a stronger response in the recipient. Perhaps in its materiality the quality of the surface, the detail of an embossing or a watermark, the note or the letter will ensure its existence in the future, in which the digital could be lost without anything tangible to initiate its recovery.

Logo, branding and packaging for the American stationery brand Crane designed by Collins

The future. Collins worked closely with Crane’s team to revitalize the brand and restart the digital presence. This created a more relevant brand voice, created new products, collaborated artists and created customization options. With this new program and a new visual identity, Crane wants to explore new ways to express the depth and design of timeless products made from 100% cotton in premium quality. The new visual identity positions stationery as something that is not only appropriate for the present, but actually reinforced by it, and promotes the idea that material documentation and communication are a critical part of deliberate thinking.

Logo, branding and packaging for the American stationery brand Crane designed by Collins

In a way, the digital has forced itself on this project. Color blocking, a clear and strong graphic motif that is bold and elegant, a large font use and the heightened appeal of the physical in the face of digital function as a means to migrate this brand of material online to give it modernity and immediacy through simplicity and a clearly defined visual language to draw attention to a flood of visual noise. Collins’ documentation of the project itself becomes part of this digital economy of engagement. For both Crane and Collins, the images of the objects become a kind of capital that can be platformed and shared. In this way it is now also for the future,

The results are immediate and engaging, the visual language straightforward, but the real value lies in the central question of what it means to get something down on paper today, and what makes something last? It is difficult to predict the future of material in an increasingly platformed world. Crane is clearly involved, and Collins understood the existential dilemma and set it up through visual identity so that they would have more time to ponder and answer that question and, perhaps more importantly, ask that question to others Products through the use of the digital medium.

Logo, branding and packaging for the American stationery brand Crane designed by Collins

Logo, branding and packaging for the American stationery brand Crane designed by Collins

Logo, branding and packaging for the American stationery brand Crane designed by Collins

Logo, branding and packaging for the American stationery brand Crane designed by Collins

Logo, branding and packaging for the American stationery brand Crane designed by Collins

Logo, branding and packaging for the American stationery brand Crane designed by Collins

Logo, branding and packaging for the American stationery brand Crane designed by Collins

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