Aggressive and reliable
Lippincott & Margulies' 1962 logo for Royal Bank.
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In the early 1960s, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBofC) was one of North America's most recognised financial institutions. Despite being a pioneer, its appearance was considered conservative and musty, which was compounded by the rapidly evolving financial world. Further, the bank was contemplating a move to Place Ville Marie, a modern complex under construction in downtown Montreal. The new building, with its contemporary design, sat in stark contrast to the traditional image of the bank and its former headquarters.
Driven by market competition, the new headquarters and the need for continued growth and relevance, RBofC embarked on a design program to reinvigorate its image. More specifically, the intention was to present the bank as being contemporary, aggressive, reliable, global and forward-looking. To do this, the bank chose American design studio Lippincott & Margulies (L&M) to lead a rebranding effort.
The process began with extensive interviews with the bank's employees and customers. Unlike other large projects, L&M did not engage formal consumer research or suggest long-term objectives for the bank. Instead, it would focus on helping the bank project itself in a more relevant and effective manner.
RBofC was the fourth largest in North America and highly successful, so the context of the project was to support further growth through formalisation, leveraging economies of scale and making improvements to image across all forms of communications.
One of L&M's first recommendations was to shorten the bank's name for domestic and U.S. use, changing it from ‘Royal Bank of Canada’ to just ‘Royal Bank’. This change intended to simplify the bank's identity in its home country and the United States and make it easier to use in relation to its visual identity.
A key aspect of the rebranding was the design of a logo. This would replace the ‘Queen's crest’ whilst retaining the heraldic quality. The new design needed to be easily recognisable and reproducible (where the previous had not been), effective scaled and placed on top of a building and all the way down to branded account passbooks. Further, it was preferable for the logo to blend traditional and contemporary design elements, conveying heritage whilst also suggesting the taking of a more forward-focused footing.
The final design weaved together four key elements. The first two, a British lion and crown, were brought over from the previous seals. The lion; a symbol of strength and authority, and the crown; expressing a ‘royal’ symbolism, gave the bank a sufficiently ‘aggressive’ image. The globe added an international dimension while a subtle fleur-de-lis above the crown kept it from loosing its Canadian roots.
In the styling of the logo the overall design had an wood-carved feel, evoking notions such as legacy and dependability, but simple enough in its details and line weight to be considered a contemporary interpretation of a traditional concept. This was also reflected in the choice of lettering selected for the accompanying wordmark.
Various formalised lock-ups were created, and the ability to use the logo and logotype as separate assets. These increased the flexibility of the corporate identity, whilst maintaining a clear consistent image.
The redesign of the Royal Bank's signage was particularly complex due to the wide variety of branch designs across the country. The bank, often referred to as ‘The Bank with 1000 Front Doors,’ had no consistent appearance. To address this, L&M created a standardised sign system that could be adapted to all branch types, ensuring a unified look across the network.
Interior specialists focused on creating a distinctive pattern of furnishings and design elements—such as colour, fabric, texture, window layout, and lighting—that would instantly identify a branch as part of the Royal Bank family. Other elements of the rebranding included redesigning deposit and withdrawal slips, checks, internal forms, and other paperwork. L&M also created prototype advertising pieces to establish visual characteristics for future advertising and promotional materials, with special attention given to Canada's bilingual population.
The rebranding effort extended to new uniforms for bank guards and pages, which saw a change from from dull grey skirts and ‘bobby socks’ to more attractive outfits. The new identity quickly became a source of pride among employees, with the new symbol appearing on casual items like T-shirts for the bank's softball team and accessories like cuff links, sweater guards, and pins. This could only have been achieved through a more simplified logo which could be embroidered, cast and printed without diminishing its recognition.
In its January 1962 monthly newsletter Royal Bank explained the reasoning behind the new corporate image, emphasising the importance of communicating its values and goals to the public effectively, noting that building a corporate image is ‘not about making the organisation feel good but about ensuring the public accurately perceives the bank's aims, sincerity, and achievements’.
The logo remained in place until 1974 when Freddi Jaggi and Fritz Gottschalk were brought on to refine the identity. They simplified the logo further, increasing its scalability and functionality, and addressing its ‘frailty’ around the finer lines.
In the new design, the primary lines remained and most of the lighter lines, which provided details such as the feathering on the lion’s mane, were removed. The thicker lines of this version developed the feeling of modernity and improved its ability to be fabricated as three-dimensional signage.
In 2001, Royal Bank created a new master brand to convey its evolution from a bank to a diversified financial services company. The new brand name ‘RBC Financial Group’ (shortened to ‘RBC’ in 2007) afforded the business the flexibility to hold the growing diversity of the businesses. The company introduced another logo that sought to retain much of what had come before but in a more compact manner.
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The improved logo seems more recognizable