The Pursuit of Style

Nordstrom

Nordstrom Rack Brand Refresh

Nordstrom Rack is a fashion retailer offering branded clothing and accessories for women, men, and children at a large discount. In anticipation of an aggressive store expansion schedule, Nordstrom’s creative team enlisted Turnstyle to work on design revisions for the Rack's visual identity system to better reflect their current and future vision in-store and online.

Client

Nordstrom

Disciplines

Identity,

Digital

The Nordstrom Rack logo alongside a geometric composition of overlapping blue, red, and gray rectangles and a circle illustrating the brand's visual identity system.
A Nordstrom Rack brand campaign image with a model in a colorful printed top, overlaid with the brand's blue and red geometric shapes and the tagline "Be Original."
A Nordstrom Rack brand campaign image with a male model in neutral tones seated on a chair, with the brand's geometric shapes and the tagline "Own Your Style."

Background

Nordstrom Rack carries more top-tier designer labels and brands than any of the leading discount retailers. Better brands equate to bigger value for customers. The Rack is also tuned in to today’s evolving consumer, offering services such a well-integrated multichannel shopping experience, easy returns, effective mobile apps, while also maintaining a significant social presence.

Strategically, our objective was to portray the Rack as: (1) accessible, not elitist; (2) confident, but not arrogant; (3) style-conscious, but not superior; (4) upbeat and fresh, but not trite or overly sentimental; (5) witty, but not self-deprecating.

A Nordstrom Rack magazine spread with a full-bleed fashion photo and "Dip Your Toes In These" headline on the left, and a right page featuring styled outfit and accessory photos promoting Vince, Nanette, and more brands.

Visual Audit

Turnstyle first reviewed and audited the existing Nordstrom Rack visual brand presence (online and in-store) to identify opportunities for improvement. Several things stood out: an over-use of multi-colored circles which at times felt juvenile and lacked sophistication, an unfocused typographic voice with a mishmash of typefaces and cluttered styling, and inconsistent photographic art direction.

Nordstrom Rack's logo before the refresh.
Nordstrom Rack's refreshed logo.

Visual Identity System

Tactically, we focused and refined the various components of the identity system to establish a stronger, more cohesive visual foundation from which Nordstrom's in-house creative team could develop branded communications.

Logo

We adjusted the existing logo lockup by nesting the Nordstrom logotype more comfortably to the left of the ascender of the letter ‘k.’

Typography

LL Brown, a geometric sans-serif typeface available in multiple weights and stylistic variants, was chosen to bring a more modern typographic sensibility to the system. Brown was selected for its classic influences and friendly quirks that give it an approachable and fashionable appeal.

Color

A limited color palette was selected to help establish a more sophisticated and recognizable color space. Additional accent colors can be used to compliment photography or to designate seasonal campaigns.

Shapes

Fashion outfits all shapes and sizes, so we expanded the visual language beyond just circles by employing a variety of geometric shapes that intersect and overlap. These shapes and patterns serve to punctuate graphic compositions.

Photography

Photographic art direction focused on four characteristics: (1) an effortless and optimistic mood with diverse casting; (2) simple, natural and neutral backgrounds; (3) soft, open lighting; (4) intentional negative space and interesting crops.

A type specimen for LL Brown, the sans-serif typeface used in the Nordstrom Rack visual identity system, showing uppercase, lowercase, and numeral character sets.
The Nordstrom Rack brand shape system, showing the full range of geometric elements — squares, rectangles, and circles — in various scales across the blue, red, gray, and white brand palette.
A collage of Nordstrom Rack fashion photography featuring men and women styled in a range of casual and elevated looks, with accessories and apparel across neutral and seasonal color palettes.
A Nordstrom Rack promotional poster featuring a male model in a tan suit, advertising Ben Sherman and more at up to 50% off, with the brand's red and blue geometric accents.
A Nordstrom Rack "Style at Work" promotional poster featuring a female model in a denim shirt and printed skirt, with the tagline "From Boardroom to Lunch Room, Up to 50% Off."
A grid of Nordstrom Rack mobile email designs showcasing various campaigns including "Dip Your Toes In These," "Clear the Rack 75% Off," "Sport to Sweet," "Start Fall on the Right Foot," "Romance Brigade," and "New Markdowns."
A grid of pages from the Nordstrom Rack brand guidelines, covering introduction, visual identity, graphic elements, art direction, and "Be Graphic" sections with fashion photography and the geometric shape system.

Next Project

the measurement insight company