The red thread
Everyone knows the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. But you may not know that the idea to host a spectacular event came from a group of employees. They wanted to win their customers’ hearts with a one-of-a-kind kickoff to the holidays. When I first heard this and the emotional stories of customers finding a perfect prom dress or first interview suit at Macy’s, I saw the throughline. This spirit of joy and celebration was in the brand’s DNA, and I wanted to bring it into commerce with a unified brand identity.
Visual identity
Our goal was to create a simple and scalable, human-centered brand expression as a warm welcome to our widely diverse audience. Balancing notes from Macy’s heritage with a clean and contemporary aesthetic, we built a timeless brand ethos that emphasized open space and accessibility. The first step was to refresh the logo with a bolder weight.
The outline star was added as a graphic device, an ownable brand cue in places where the logo would be redundant. The secondary palette was expanded with warm colors inspired by the architecture—both historic and modern, giving us flexibility to dial the red up or down depending on seasonal trend palettes or the promotional context.
Voice and Tone
The new voice was helpful, inspiring, witty, and welcoming, which led us to develop a warm and friendly custom font. Macys Sans was paired with a complementary serif font to highlight promotional messages within a new editorial context. Photography direction was also welcoming, authentic and relatable with natural variation from cool confidence to genuine excitement.
Digital innovation
We brought this new energy to one-of-a-kind branded digital experiences, too. Taking inspiration from Macy’s early focus on innovation, we created the award-winning NFT series of Macy’s classic parade balloons, and a web3 multiverse experience to kick off the next 165+ years of entertainment and commerce.
