INNOVATION BY DESIGN 2025

If you're worrying about the decline of human creativity in this age of machine-driven automation, spend some time perusing the following pages.

- ANNE LATINI

A PUSHBACK AGAINST CORPORATE BLANDING JKR JONES KNOWLES RITCHIE DESIGN COMPANY OF THE YEAR

TECH LOGOS ARE BLUE. CORPORATE IDENTITIES ARE dull. Big-box stores are boring. These kinds of assumptions are common among consumers who came of age during what's known as the era of "corporate blanding," and Jones Knowles Ritchie (JKR) wants to break them all.

Over the past year, JKR has been entrusted to rethink the public face of iconic companies like Yahoo, Mozilla, and Walmart. By questioning norms and injecting a hint of playfulness, the agency breathed new life into client identities-all with an eye for longevity. The approach has paid off: In 2024, JKR notched 29% year-over-year revenue growth in new sectors including tech, retail, nonprofit, media and entertainment, and finance.

Tosh Hall, JKR's global chief creative officer, says the company's process always starts the same way: "We go and we find what makes a brand unique, and we amplify it."

For the software nonprofit Mozilla, JKR took the brand's focus on accessible tech and crafted an identity designed for both legibility and distinctiveness. The result-a retro combination of pixels, bitmaps, and bright green (no tech blue in sight)-has significantly increased brand recognition among global consumers, as measured by Harris Poll research. For Yahoo, the agency introduced the YEP, an exclamation point symbol that revives Yahoo's playful '90s-era personality. And to brighten up a decades-old Walmart wordmark, JKR drew inspiration from a snapshot of founder Sam Walton sporting a Walmart trucker cap with Antique Olive typeface.