How Hermes rebranded as Evri with an ever-changing logo

The parcel delivery company has changed its name to Evri and an innovative logo design uses ever-changing type permutations.

The courier company previously known as Hermes has gone through a complete make-over at the hands of design studio Superunion and type foundry Monotype.

Superunion was brought in after winning a pitch as part of an ongoing transformation at the courier, including a significant investment in customer service, which follows a period of growth during the COVID pandemic.

Superunion creative director Mark Wood, who leads the partnership with Evri, explains that the brief was focused on reflecting on “the role of a courier in a community being a really important one, especially during COVID, where in certain instances they were the only person some people would see in a day.”

A draft from Superiunion’s work-in-progress.

The focus, then, was on emphasising the diversity and multiplicity of the UK and its communities, with which, Wood said, the brand already had direct links. The studio wanted to find a way to represent all the “different people, different parcels, different places, different communities” which interact with the brand and its messengers.

This translated to the name: Evri represents a phonetic spelling of “every”. And the name in turn quite literally led to the creative response, which saw the studio partnering with Monotype to create a chamaleonic logo. Using what it calls “variable font intelligence”, Monotype created a tool, which is built into the typeface and makes it easy for Evri’s teams to randomnise the fonts of each letter in the logo for different uses – resulting, in practice, in a whopping 194,481 different possible logo iterations.

A draft featuring all the logo letter iterations overlaid on each other.

The idea is for each default character to appear stylistically unique across Evri’s communications, and beyond that, for each delivery van in the 5,000-strong fleet to have its own design, creating a piece of vinyl artwork for each truck. The core idea, Wood continued, was that it should be lots of things. All things. Constantly changing, and full of characters – both in the sense of the typography-led identity,” and in the sense of representing the UK’s diversity.

Evri trucks featuring re-designed branding.

Phil Garnham, Creative Type Director at Monotype, jumped at the opportunity of “playing with variety, especially in a really decorative sort of display. I’m really up for pushing technology as well, so I loved that idea of [working with] the variable font specification, which hasn’t been adopted by many brands – especially big ones. The idea that we could build a logotype, a variable font that could create as many iterations of the mark was really exciting.”

One thing will stay the same: the brand is sticking with blue.

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Comments
  • Stephen March 22, 2022 at 4:57 pm

    So are they trademarking 194,481 logos?

  • Douglas Barrett Wilkinson March 22, 2022 at 11:30 pm

    Hermes has had a good record for several millennia: why change him!

  • Richard de Pesando March 23, 2022 at 8:17 am

    Renaming and totally rebranding while you’re ‘on a roll’ just reinforces how toxic the brand had become at the customer level and most of the industry response I saw at the time this was announced focussed on Hermes simply walking away from problems and failures rather than attempting to fix them. Hermes/Evri trying to connect with the end consumer in the press waffle above is a bit of a strange one – they are the service and not the actual ‘in hand’ product. ‘Evri’ itself is pretty awful and has been mocked widely already – but my biggest problem is the mutability of the brand itself – as if they are going to great lengths to avoid pinning down who they are or allowing the consumer to connect with them and build a relationship with the brand. managing something like this on a day-to-day level will be hard work for their design coms team. No disrespect to the agencies involved – I just think this is a huge miscalculation on the side of the client and I don’t think it will have a very long lifespan.

  • Neil Littman March 23, 2022 at 8:58 am

    I saw this story in last weekend’s business papers and wondered how a rebrand can change the public perception of a company. I am surprised that Design Week has not made any comments on the background to the story. If you Google ‘Why has Hermes rebranded’ this is what comes up and worse. It makes it very difficulty to properly evaluate the value of the design solutions as the company behaviour is not guided solely by the identity. Would be interested to hear your comments. I have also had personal experience of deliveries by the former company that fell far short of expectations.

    ‘The rebranding of Hermes to Evri comes in the wake of allegations against the company of bad customer service, parcel mishandling and failing to pay its couriers appropriately’.

  • D.Conran March 23, 2022 at 12:05 pm

    “Makes it easy for Evri’s teams to randomise the fonts of each letter in the logo for different uses – resulting, in practice, in a whopping 194,481 different possible logo iterations.”

    What (or where) is there ever the requirement of 194,481 iterations? Will there ever be 194,481 different uses? How do the variation in type styles actually impact their audience to justify this other than it being window dressing?

    These logo systems with multiple options although look nice never really seem to materialise into something usable, with the company usually settling on a select (favourite) few.

    Maybe Hermes/Evri should have put more focus into the 194,481 customers they disappoint on a daily basis.

  • Richard Bailey March 23, 2022 at 3:06 pm

    I don’t think changing the name is the best idea. It just makes it harder to find contact details when you are looking for hermes. The name itself is not good, and the logo (with its changing font) is abysmal. Why not spend the money on creating a better service rather than giving it all away to a design agency ?

  • Rich March 24, 2022 at 12:53 am

    I think the logo design is horrific. Why would you want so many iterations of the same letters? Not good for consistent branding. Nothing will change about the business either. This article is such brown nosing.

  • Miss Jennifer Badger March 24, 2022 at 10:16 am

    Why is it not possible to get a response from the new brand – EVRI when I click on the button!! Hermes was never this bad!!

  • Gavin F Sandeman March 24, 2022 at 10:22 am

    As an advertising man of long standing, I was perplexed and nonplussed to see the name change. My experience of Hermes has always been good, I may have been lucky.
    It seems the modern iteration of Hermes is not that long, so still bedding in?

    ”The studio wanted to find a way to represent all the “different people, different parcels,
    different places, different communities” which interact with the brand and its messengers.
    This translated to the name: Evri represents a phonetic spelling of “every”.

    This of course woke twaddle. I want the delivery or receipt of my parcel to be simple , quick
    and economic. I do not interact with messengers except to thank them when I see them. Or to thank the Co-OP where I leave the parcel

    Over many years we have seen these stupid ‘new, made-up’ names such as Accenture
    Arriva, you know the rest. Xfoliate etc!!!

    Now a days we need the feel of established business that is interested in us and who understands us.
    Hermes is the messenger of the Gods, I would love to buy that brand name !

  • John Morgan March 24, 2022 at 4:04 pm

    My experience with Hermes was very good, the ring the bell and run service as Covid came along was fine with me.

    I have an Evri delivery due in a couple of days, a quick search and its Hermes!

    An ever changing logo typeface is a fine idea, to have also played a little with the horizontal and vertical orientation of the letters on vehicles yet kept the paper logo constant may have been more fun and from an advertising perspective more memorable. If you like that idea let me know.

  • R Taylor March 24, 2022 at 7:36 pm

    Fleet of 5000 vehicles, each one to have a different typeface, yet the picture shows 3 new vans all with the same typeface. Got to laugh.

  • Elaine Lydon March 25, 2022 at 7:46 pm

    Still a rubbish company. I was mucked about by this Company and the snotty cow at the depo needs sacking.

  • Neil Littman March 27, 2022 at 12:18 pm

    May as well tell you about my Hermes experience which led to my previous comments. I ordered an items of clothing from M&S and received an email telling me my parcel had been ‘successfully delivered’. This was news to me as I had not received anything nor heard a knock on the door when I had been in all day. I tracked the package and fortunately Hermes published a photo of the delivery drop location. This was not my home. In fact it was several houses up the road and the courier, when they didn’t receive an answer because the people were away for half-term, threw the package over a fence. The item landed in a bucket of water. One of my neighbours rescued the package for me and I gave Hermes a no star review.

  • morag hunter March 27, 2022 at 4:01 pm

    I missed a call, then I was sent a text message but I didn’t know the name Evri so I thought it was a scam of some sorts. Went online and tried to get help but the service set up was hopeless as they needed a tracking number which I didn’t have or know what they were trying to deliver to me. I am still not impressed with this company no matter what name they use. They want me to tell them when to deliver? Deliver what? I still don’t have a clue…….unless it is flowers for mothers day……….but I doubt that.

  • Kev March 28, 2022 at 8:38 am

    I just wanted to see the faces of the in-house designers when this came out, logo requests are going to be fun lol

  • Mike Dempsey March 29, 2022 at 9:31 am

    Over the last couple of years, I’ve noticed that the general response to Design Week’s posts is, more often than not, pretty low. That is until a new design project comes along that is clearly a BIG mistake, like this bazaar rebranding solution, and everyone piles in, and for good reason. What on earth are they doing? My experience with Hermes compared with other delivery companies has not been good. They never seem to be able to find my house when all the others can. So, rather than hiding the covering the cracks with a new name (which at first glance I read as EVIL) and a ridiculous idea for an ever-changing logo they first need to get the functional side up to scratch. Take a leaf out of UPS’s book.

  • Tim Riches March 30, 2022 at 10:28 am

    Bob Parcel’s got his work cut out.

  • James Money March 31, 2022 at 10:00 am

    This has to be the worst rebranding in history!

  • Lisa March 31, 2022 at 2:22 pm

    The logo is HORRIBLE. I thought it was a joke when I first saw it. How did this get approved?

  • Chris April 5, 2022 at 10:25 pm

    Sorry but I feel this is a terrible example of a company with a terrible reputation (Hermes) trying to hide their failure behind an agency just trying to show off. Hermes are shamefully shrugging off their past and should be investing in customer service and processes to improve their existing business brand.

    Superunion have done some fantastic work in the past, for example the BBC Two animations, but I feel they have missed the mark here and the logo is just a mess and doesn’t need this many permutations. Seems like they are trying to be too clever and maybe should have focused on improving a Hermes rebrand…just my opinion though, maybe I am in the minority.

  • Kevin Wagener June 9, 2022 at 3:22 pm

    My ongoing impression of Hermes as a company has never been a good one.
    The delivery service itself falls well below the standards set by others but worse than that is their customer service (or lack thereof).

    Hermes strive to be an almost faceless entity, to the point that this appears to be a higher priority than providing the delivery service itself. They have deliberately structured their business model so as to avoid any human-to-human contact with their customers at all cost, except of course, for the collection / delivery drivers who have neither the authority or the working knowledge to deal with the kind of questions, complaints and comments that most customers would likely have.

    In a nutshell:
    Hermes has always done its best to hide from its customers and make it as difficult as possible to contact anyone in the company who has any kind of authority. Now they quietly change their name with no public fanfare or announcement, so as to further distance themselves from its mostly dissatisfied customers.
    Best of all though, they understand that corporate branding, in particular a company’s logo is the most important factor driving brand recognition and customer’s trust. What do you do when your company image is so bad that a mere glance of your logo conjures up visions of broken parcels arriving late at wrong addresses? Change the logo every day of course!

  • Roberto Smollini January 14, 2023 at 5:31 pm

    These story smack of corporate think/strategy. Hernes…make s plan… Design new name…to ghost into non-existence itself along with the poor performances and public perceptions. (Like the guy in the TV…Reginald Perrin)

    At these same time, try to rebuild new identity with most publics unaware that the vans be “Wrapped” and the drivers be got new uniforms, underneath they still the same merda. Still leave parcels on the peoples front doors where the passing peoples could take and get t to he good use of them things they no pay for.

    They driver still no turn up with your parcel and then send you message to say they be knocking at your door and you no been in your casa even though you been standing making the dinner in g the kitchen all the day, looking at everyone of the peoples and vans that be passing by the bloody window.

    Better using the monies given to create the new identity to employ better driver who be delivering the parcel into my hand. Evri…what waste of monies. When I send my package I always go the Royal Mail, always be getting to the person. Never Fails,

  • Andrew Brown August 30, 2023 at 6:41 pm

    Rebrand – hermes to evri only because people started to call them Herpes instead of Hermes! And no one likes or wants herpes – and for good reason too, customer service abysmal. Try calling them and see for yourself if ever you have the unfortunate attempt to locate a package or missed/non-delivery! Incompetent on every level. Evri, yeah nearly Evri package lost or stolen! Should just shut this company down.

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