Brand Design
for a Special 2020 Double 11 Shopping Festival
Alibaba Design | New Retail Design
The Double 11 festival is destined to be different in 2020. Against the backdrop of the ongoing pandemic and disturbances in the global environment, would the Double 11 still be able to break yet another record?
"Rome was not built in a day".
It's the same with the miracle of Double 11.
Behind this miracle is the 10 years of ongoing perseverance -- it is the constant self-challenging and pursuit of perfection. But at the same time, each year's Double 11 has become a very difficult mission for all -- they need to bear the pressure and deliver exciting surprises for all customers, to meet their expectations year after year.
A mysterious task team -- Tmall Branding Design Team -- has been creating and refreshing Double 11's VI every year. The team has turned an ordinary sales event into a true "festival" with their design finesse; they have proven the Irreplaceability of design and designers from Double 11.
2020 is the 12th year for Double 11. The team would literally "embrace" anxiety every year after the release of Double 11 Design Branding. "How will you design for next year?" Friends and family often make jokes about it, but this indeed reflects our thinking. The Tmall Double 11 logo could be the hardest logo design for the team -- the reason being that the framework of "a cat head" + "11.11" is immutable; we only have the remaining 20% real estate to design for a different theme every year, to give each year's Double 11 a new meaning.
The biggest challenge is still the symbol itself. We have tried hundreds of sketches throughout the years, and we have exhausted all visual and graphic combinations we could ever think of. For 2020, we almost gave up conceiving a more "meaningful" design -- it's just a logo, after all. Therefore, we just tried designing from a purely graphic design perspective. However, after numerous versions and iterations, we discovered that the designs were either familiar or completely unrecognizable. The graphic strategy wasn't working, but the deadline wasn't waiting. Could there be another way?
Whenever we get stuck in the way, we stop and hear a voice say:
"Think big, start small".
In the year 2020, we all experience the BIG pandemic, which makes us think, that life should be a journey worth cherishing,
rather than some days to comprise.
And because of the sufferings brought by the pandemic, we all share the same expectation for this year's shopping festival:
This is how life should be.
So we need to "do whatever to get better"
--
every dream of a serious life deserves to be inspired.
Therefore, the Double 11 festival has a big change compared to previous years.
First of all, the new supply: this Double 11 festival will let more brands and shops to enter, not only expand the original brand and shops to 250 thousand but also focus on supporting 5 million small and medium-sized shops in need of aid. New China-made goods businesses, foreign trade enterprises, belt factory, agricultural products business – let them, with the help of The Double 11 festival，get out of the rut and be refreshed.
Secondly, there is the new playing method：upgrade the original "Double 11 Global Carnival" to "Carnival season", turn the cheapest day of the year into two waves of the sales period, prolonging the duration of the carnival. On the one hand, it helps shops bring more growth and more opportunities so that shops can truly feel that their business is getting better. At the same time, consumers have more choices, lower, more affordable, and more convenient prices, so that consumers personally feel that "life is getting better". Let the double 11 festival, through the rational value brought by "buy buy buy" bring to the "Tmall double 11 festival a “let me get better" emotional value.
And we translate that emotional value into a language that we can communicate with all of us
「 Cheer Up! （Life will be better, come on！）」
Think of here, the direction of brand design this year is more and more clear, this is the direction of design that we get from the whole perspective.
What kind of specific screen can intuitively feel the "Cheer Up!" emotional message?
And when we combine the "cat head + 11.11 + arm high wave" together, it is like nature; it's just the addition of one little detail, and the whole symbol suddenly comes to life.
Tmall out of the circle (aid) hand, cheer for you!
We finished the Logo and Slogan, which are just the first step in the whole double 11 festival brand design.
The next thing we need to cheer up is to extends "Cheer up!" this core idea to every scene online and offline, so that people can feel the inspiring power in all aspects.
The Format of 2020 Double 11 Festival
Upward vitality / Up
First, the powerful brand format: "Up!" is defined by extracting the positive attitude of "raising arms and waving" from the brand mapping and the clear perception of "upward vitality" from the visual mapping.
At the same time, we combined the logo animation with the brand format to define the online brand layout, which not only adapts to the increasingly multimedia environment, but also increases the opportunities for communicating with our users.
The VI of 2020 Double 11 Festival
Upward fluctuation / Up
The powerful and colorful ribbon is gushing out in the clear and cloudless sky...
Through combining these elements, we have formed the unique visual language of this year's Double 11 Festival, which is applied to various scenes with the warm and powerful handwritten slogan and the disassembly of shape, color, texture, and structure.
Tmall and Transformers, Peppa Pig, Hello Kitty, Bubble Mart, Haier Brothers, and others are designed in the same picture! They speak out for young people's attitude towards a life together, supporting youngers to enjoy everything.
We and super IPs are with you and stand up to you for every kind of ideal life!
