CO-FOUNDER OF THE FRENCH ADVERTISING AGENCY “ELDORADO”
You are an artistic director, you conceive and design advertising campaigns for your clients. But how do you get involved with creating or updating their logo as well ?
If you want me to tell you very recent stories in my professional life that are significant when it comes to logos, it would first have to be the Galeries Lafayette and then the Benetton logo which I redesigned as well. These names were very strong and existed for a long time and they both needed a change. They are two completely different philosophies, opposed if you wish. I initiated one… actually both changes.

When we were prospecting for the Galeries Lafayette account, our recommendation was to change the logo, because for me this was vital. Recognition was the most important thing so when we would design an ad, it would be immediately attributed to the Galeries Lafayette. They didn’t have a logo, they had a typeface and I said right away that it wasn’t a logo. Le Printemps [another major Parisian department store] had a logo, it had a little flower that was in everybody’s mind. The Galeries Lafayette had nothing.
We started from a concept that was: “the most fashionable department store”… in the world in fact. You can ask around the world, for the public this is the most fashionable department store, because most of all it’s Paris, and France (we are dealing with a clientele at 30% foreigners), so this is here. That’s why we said: ”La mode est là !” (fashion is here !).
And for me, fashion, it’s written by hand, to reflect creativeness. So first I wrote Galeries Lafayette all by hand several times and then I put “galeries” in type as you know it, and it remained that way. The idea was to put on a department store, with a big building, many floors, lots of business and all that, something light. The logo was always in my head and I did it very fast, alone. Afterwards, I just added the Eiffel tower. I was looking for something somewhere, an accident. I looked for stars, all kinds of things… but I find the image of Paris so strong for everything that has to do with fashion, Paris and France. And if foreigners bring back a shopping bag to New York with the Eiffel tower on it (there was no store in New York then), for me that was something. So I added it with the two T’s. That came after. But that was there at the first presentation.
We did the presentation with a document big like this (about 3 inches) with four pieces of paper pasted together on an index card I think, and we told them: ”This is it.” And when it came to really doing it we just moved a couple of lousy details.
That was the agency’s recommendation. We only presented that, the shopping bags and that, and they understood. That was fantastic. But it was a real gamble, we said: ”If there is no logo, there is nothing we can do”, because this is the core. For them this should be the most important thing. Everyday there are 50,000 bags, or I don’t know how many, that go out with the logo on it. That’s real advertising.
It’s the most fantastic story I ever lived, in my profession doing something that is seen everywhere right away. I did some logos for some little guys, … you see them three times and after that… But here, once it was accepted, it was on all the shopping bags, on all the labels, all the forms, all the ads, all the catalogues, and everywhere all the time. The big sign on the store we couldn’t change because it was really too expensive to do everything simultaneously. The trucks, they painted over. Incredible
When you created the logo did you take into account all the different types of supports on which it would be used ?
That’s not a problem. I’m really of the trade because I studied in a Swiss school, so everything that regards logo design and its applications is basic for me, I don’t think about it before. We can take care of that later. Those are false problems. You can’t think: will it be readable? or: is it possible?… that’s not it. First it’s the “thing that does the trick” and then you have to adapt it.
You didn’t consider using anything that existed previously ?
No, because there was nothing. One had only to consider the personality of the department store, that’s all, the past of the store.
Is it common practice for advertising agencies in Europe to produce logo design ?
No, no. Even in France there are studios specialized in logos, but I find them always a little rigid. But that’s very personal, because I studied all that. That’s why I’m doing it, that’s why I dare to do it, because I have a vision. Creating a logo is more a philosophy than designing a form that is only the result in the end. And the so-called design studios very often do the opposite, they look for shapes, and that’s not what it is. Well, obviously they start from a philosophy, but they do graphic design, they take six months to do it, one year and that’s not it. You do it, smack, like that, one idea. I don’t believe that you can look six months for a logo, that’s not true, or you don’t know the client well enough, the personality of the guy you’re dealing with.
Still, the client must express his or her opinion and, therefore, possibly reject certain things…
No, of course they don’t have to accept it, but if you want, this one [the Galeries Lafayette] was so much in every part of our integrated communication strategy. It is the core of it.
This strategy, it’s you who put it together, logo and all, right ?
Absolutely. But we started from the logo.
So you didn’t use marketing studies, testing…
I believe that it is useless. I’m going to be very harsh but I find that worthless and I’m going to tell you why: because logo design is a matter of feeling. You like red, me I like blue. Even if the people say blue, if you like red that’s what makes your personality. If you use blue like everybody says, everybody is blue and it takes you nowhere. Everybody is testing and it’s worthless. Specially for logos. That’s something that somebody buys because he likes it, not because it was tested.
Anyway if you have some feeling, if it’s your profession… What I did for the Galeries Lafayette, I would never have done for Le Printemps, I would never have done for la Samaritaine [another Parisian department store], that comes from your guts, it’s something very personal, that’s your experience that makes you do something, because you feel things…
You can be wrong, that’s for sure, because it takes two people, one who creates and one who buys. That’s what it’s all about…
Yes, marketing studies seem to be more useful to provide selling arguments than to help design creation…
Yes, but I’m not interested. That won’t make me change anything if somebody says: “It’s not readable, the two T’s you can’t see what it is…” I don’t give a damn. That’s spontaneity, your life experience. If I say “Volkswagen,” you have something that comes to mind, you’re not going to write it in script. Do you see what I’m saying? Those are basics of the trade. For Hermès you won’t do something out of concrete. This is obvious. For me its is obvious.
For example, why did you choose the red of the Galeries Lafayette logo ?
If I tell you, the guys from the design studios are going to laugh. If you have “Lafayette” written by hand and “Galeries” in red, there is some modernity somewhere in there that seems right to me. Look at a black shopping bag with “Lafayette” in white and “Galeries” in red. If you take away the red, it’s elegant, if you add the red, snap, it’s a little more current. That’s a little thing like that. The red of the logo could be discussed for hours, but personally I don’t need to. The red is necessary because it takes away the boring side of elegance.

As for Benetton, there is a logo that dates back fifteen years and that is very recognizable. For four or five years I was telling Lucianno Benetton: ”Can’t you improve it a bit, make it a bit more modern?” So when they made the decision to do research for a new logo two years ago, they selected three of the best known studios, one in San Francisco, one in London, and they themselves did some research. Everybody tried to do logos for Benetton. Big project. One day Lucianno calls me: ”Come to London, they’re going to present us the research they’ve done.” I go to London, we look at the work and at the end of the meeting the guy asks my opinion. I said: ”Pitiful !” That was the truth. They had done graphic design. We were not expecting graphic design. These guys didn’t get it. They had done everything, all the types of the world, all the shapes of the world, but they had forgotten the content, which is a philosophy.
They reworked it… still didn’t get it. In my opinion, that is. So all I said to Lucianno was: ”If this is what you’re gonna get, you might as well not change anything, keep the old one, It’s good, it doesn’t bother anybody. If we can’t improve it…” He said: ”Okay, we don’t move.”
Then one day I was at their place in Italy, to look at the new collection and they had made colored labels with our base line on it, our title: ”United Colors of Benetton,” with the references on the back, instead of using the logo. I tear off one label and I go see Benetton. I tell him: ”If you want to change the logo, you put your philosophy on it, you put “United Colors of Benetton,” “Isn’t it too long?” “No, it has to be done in condensed lettering. The same green, the same shape, square corners instead of round ones because it’s a little more modern and with the most neutral typeface. Do you want to see it?” I went down (they have a computer there), we did it, he saw it and he said :”Okay, we do that.” All that to show you that it is a philosophy, it’s not graphic design. The design is pretty or not but this new logo is something else. It may be the first logo with the philosophy really integrated in it, expressed. United Colors of Benetton, it’s not only: Benetton. I think this is right. From a distance it’s Benetton, and when you look closer: hey, United Colors of Benetton.
When they did the mock up for the store signs, I just had to say: “wider, taller”, it took five minutes.
At Eldorado you have had a long term relationship with Benetton…
Yes, and Lucianno was important in the decision, but it is part of the philosophy that the agency built here for seven years… what had to be done was obvious to me. That wasn’t only to make it prettier or more modern, that wasn’t that. That was really to bring out something. It’s not like Coca Cola that improves the logo every five, ten years, that adjusts a little bit here, a little bit there…
…changing studio each time for that matter. There is a long list of people claiming to be the author of the Coca Cola logo.
That’s it. Well here, with the Galeries Lafayette logo, nobody can. Benetton nobody can. It’s me who ripped out the label, no one else intervened.
The process was peculiar, and bold at the same time, because rationally for me the new Benetton logo is odd somewhere, it’s not design, it’s nothing. I don’t know how to put it, it’s just a touch, there’s no esthetic in it. There is nothing to say about it. You can’t say it is pretty, and that’s what I like.
We could say it of the old one. We could talk about its design…
Absolutely, but with the new one you can’t. That’s why we changed it also. It looked old. Ours can never look old. It can’t be old, it is just the way it is. That’s a type that has no shape, the color is the Benetton color, so I had to keep it, not turn everything upside down all the time. That’s often the problem with the studios, they think like mad. I won’t give you names, but they were top studios. Not one thought of doing a little evolution from the old logo. They all had creativity madness, for nothing. That’s what is disappointing. You see big names that give you 500 charts and not one is right. They could have said: ”We’ll just change the corners… the green should be a touch…”
From time to time we should know not to be too creative.
It’s like if you hired a cook to prepare a dinner in your house. You read all the books, three days of preparation, the best ingredients, invitation cards and everything. The night of the dinner comes, you get dressed up, you sit down, you’re being served and it’s not right. The guy blew it. He says: ”but it’s superb, I have all the superb ingredients, I used them all…” but the miracle is not there. Voilà. That’s where the real differences are with the people that think, I’m not even saying intelligent people, but people that have real feelings. Why some cooks can make a master piece with a chicken and at the bistro next door theirs is uneatable? That’s the same thing with logo design. At the beginning the problem is the same for everyone and then it’s what you’ve got inside yourself that makes the difference.
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