28 April, 2025 How does it feel when your work is redesigned by others? Clare Dowdy flips the script on the design world’s focus on the new. Whenever a redesign gets a lot of attention, the focus of the design industry and the media is understandably on the new look – whether it’s loved or hated. But what about the design that’s been dumped? Often that work was also unveiled with much fanfare, and heralded as the way forward, a new beginning for the company. The last six months has seen a flurry of this sort of thing. Wolff Olins’ 2021 abrdn mark was rolled back as the brand brought back those much-mocked missing “e”s. Made Thought’s identity for GF Smith was axed, in favour of Templo’s smile. With the coming together of the Royal Ballet & Opera, Someone’s Royal Opera logo was consigned to storage, and DesignStudio’s solution stepped into the limelight. And most famously, Jaguar’s boxy capitals were ditched for a lower-case wordmark by its in-house team. And that’s just logo land. Designs for retail, hospitality, workplace, packaging, websites and airline interiors all suffer the same fate. How do designers of the old work feel? And how do they manage the experience for their staff and other clients? “It stings when our work is redesigned; it’s deeply personal,” Made Thought’s cofounder Ben Parker admits. Anna Burles, co-founder of branding and interiors agency Run for the Hills, describes it as “so disheartening.” One interior designer, who wishes to remain anonymous, is staggeringly magnanimous. “Internally, we approach it with curiosity and openness – design is never static, and the way people live and interact with their environments changes over time,” she says. “It stings when our work is redesigned; it’s deeply personal.” SomeOne’s cofounder Simon Manchipp is pragmatic– up to a point. “Frankly, without change we are all out of a job. So if a project we’ve worked on gets worked on by another firm, that’s to be expected – it’s part of the natural landscape. “That’s not to say we do not hear groans of disapproval from our design teams when a carefully crafted project gets needlessly butchered in the name of the latest trend, or the whims of the new marketing director.” Parker and his team try to be philosophical about it and look at the context. “For us, branding is about unearthing a business’s core truth – its unique worldview – and crafting a belief system around it. So, when another agency rethinks that, we step back to understand why. Has the business evolved? Has the market shifted? What sparked the desire for change?” Likewise Sam Cutler, creative director of drinks branding specialist Thirst, is always keen to drill down to get to the why. And he is willing to explore a wide range of possibilities to explain the change. “Is there a new brand manager shaking things up? Has a new player in the category changed the rule book? Are there personal egos in play? Was the original work a bit ahead of its time? Was it executed badly by the markets? “Or was the work just not up to scratch?” In the beverage sector – and FMCG more widely – clients are juggling a host of issues, any of which can trigger a redesign. “The reality of working with multinationals and challenger brands is the myriad challenges they face while trying to stay relevant,” Cutler says. “We as brand experts and creative problem solvers can influence a lot, but there’s plenty of aspects we can’t control and it’s often these factors which, in my experience, result in the exciting or dreaded call from a client about any potential redesign.” Portfolio pressures So a redesign is often driven by circumstances an agency can’t control – sometimes even which they don’t know about. But even so, what’s the impact on a studio’s portfolio, when work they have previously celebrated gets replaced? Branding and interiors agency Run for the Hills is no stranger to dealing with this type of fall-out. It once worked with a restaurant chain which then took all its brand design in-house. “It became so bad – poorly designed and cheap – that we had to remove the case study from our website just to avoid the association,” says co-founder Chris Trotman. Another restaurant group introduced new interior design, which Trotman and co-founder Anna Burles thought was weak. “It didn’t sit well with the other interior spaces we designed, which harmed our original case study, much like a terrible sequel to a good movie,” she says. Then there was the time they created a restaurant brand that was later acquired by a bigger rival. “The identity we created was completely consumed, meaning one of our hero portfolio case studies simply doesn’t exist anymore,” Trotman adds. “Most creative works best for around five years.” In the identity world, Manchipp believes that very few branding devices are sacred, or designed for eternity – “although woe betide the designer who looks to remove the V&A logo.” That was the work of Pentagram’s Alan Fletcher in 1989 and still appears simultaneously classical yet modern – the ambition of many a corporate identity. “Most creative works best for around five years,” Manchipp believes. “Half a decade later, things have generally moved on, been acquired and need an update. A rare few last longer. But these are the exceptions, not the rules.” Made Thought’s GF Smith mark had had a good innings – it launched in 2014. And Someone’s Royal Opera identity launched in 2010. Across the pond, brands like Coca-Cola, FedEx, IBM and Nike have stayed the same for decades. But overall, the industry is driven by change. If a design agency is lucky enough to stay in business for a few decades, it will inevitably witness the demise of its own work. “While many of our designs continue to endure past the ten-year mark, brands like Eurostar, The Prince’s Trust, the Royal Opera House, WorldPay, Cancer Research UK, Thameslink, Aston Villa and many others have successfully moved on,” Manchipp says. “If your involvement enabled a brand to achieve what it wanted, in the expected time frame, and on budget, then you’ve done a great job,” he adds. “In most cases branding work is not expected to last forever – it’s expected to deliver on strategic business promises.” Made Thought sees things slightly differently. “We aim for long ideas and timeless design, minimising the need for fleeting trends,” says Parker. “Because a strong brand, like enduring architecture, reveals its true value over time. If a redesign abandons that core truth, we question its lasting power – it can risk becoming mere hype.” Explaining to the team One key route to helping the team through their loss is to try and get to the bottom of the decision to change. Cutler suggests agencies should ask former clients to help them understand, beyond the glossy PR story that surrounds a redesign. “Ask questions, be honest about how you and the team are feeling, and hopefully you’ll get the same back,” he says. “This information is key to then explaining to your own teams, to help them understand why decisions have been made.” Whatever the reasons for the change, designers agree that it’s important to try and move on as quickly as possible. “Plough this energy into the next challenge and don’t waste it on things that are out of your control,” Cutler advises. As Manchipp points out, redesigns are also the work of designers. And most of the time, everyone’s pretty sensitive about it. Although Cutler does recall one occasion where his team was briefed on a new project on a video call in front of the agency they were replacing… Industries in this article Brands in this article What to read next Features Working overseas – how to make it work 31 Oct, 2024