Thought this was brilliant – rebranding Playboy

Dec 27, 2009 by Dirk Singer

Nothing to do with statistics this…or even lies…but this project by US design student Alex Cornell (found via Josh Spear) astounded me.   As his class assignment to reinvigorate a dying or defunct brand, Alex chose Playboy.

Not an obvious choice perhaps as Playboy isn’t dead, but Alex took it on as he felt it had become just another crass men’s mag indistinguishable from other borderline top-shelf titles.

By comparison 30 or 40 years ago, at least in the States, the magazine prided itself (along with its obvious, and some would say dubious, selling point) on a certain amount of intelligence in its writing style – hence the classic and knowing line “I read it for the articles.”

Alex took that line and made it the focus of his repositioning, that it would move away from the sometimes trashy men’s mag genre and focus purely on words – articles – and no pictures.

Though it’s a hypothetical exercise I’m not convinced turning Playboy into Monocle would work entirely in the way he envisages it.  Yet – the visual identity, use of the classic phrase and the replacement of the bunny with the sly fox was, I think brilliant.   Radical thinking a lot of brands could use but most would shy away from.

If he’s not got one already, give that man a job!

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