Opinion BY Armin

jcpenney Nails the American Look

As you might remember, jcpenney landed in the top three of my 2011 Worst list for its bake-off approach to designing the last iteration of their logo, so it was with both high and low expectations that I approached a highly public company reimagining announced yesterday. If you don’t mind, I’ll repeat the same introduction from last year: First opened as a dry-goods store named the “Golden Rule” in Kemmerer, Wyoming by James Cash Penney in 1902, JCPenney today is a publicly-traded company with 1,100 department stores across the U.S. and Puerto Rico, mostly in shopping malls. Providing fairly decent middle-of-the-road merchandise, JCPenney is an extremely popular destination for finding affordable items without the top brand names attached — they develop many of their own brands. / End recycled intro. / “Every initiative we pursue,” starting February 1, reads the press release, “will be guided by our core value to treat customers as we would like to be treated — fair and square.” New store designs, new brand names, new spokesperson partner in Ellen DeGeneres, and — yay — new logo and identity will be rolled out. No design firm is credited (leads anyone?).

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Opinion BY Armin

A Penney for your Thoughts

First opened as a dry-goods store named the “Golden Rule” in Kemmerer, Wyoming by James Cash Penney in 1902, JCPenney today is a publicly-traded company with 11,000 department stores across the U.S. and Puerto Rico, mostly in shopping malls. Providing fairly decent middle-of-the-road merchandise, JCPenney is an extremely popular destination for finding affordable items without the top brand names attached — they develop many of their own brands. Yesterday, JCPenney announced that its transformation “to become America’s favorite shopping destination for discovering great styles at compelling prices” would be celebrated with a “bold new logo” that is set to go into effect at the end of this month. The new logo has been designed by Luke Langhus, a third-year graphic design student at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. That’s right, a company with $17.8 billion in revenue in 2010, has a logo designed by a student. Oh, and also, forget all that complicated casing, just call it and write it as “jcpenney.”

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