Inside the new visual identity being served up at McDonald's

For the everyday consumer, the name McDonald’s might summon a handful of singular images: the Golden Arches, a Big Mac, a red container of fries, Ronald McDonald. But just two years ago, if you surveyed the company's advertising around the world, you’d find a completely different picture: jumbled messages comprising a mish-mash of fonts, a color palette pulled from the entire rainbow and an assortment of logos. That’s the problem McDonald’s set out to correct last year with a comprehensive overhaul of the company’s global visual identity. The chain is massive: about 35,000 restaurants in 120 countries around the world, with 17,000 in the U.S. alone. Given that breadth, a chaotic visual identity chips away at the brand. Its mandate was to further CEO Steve Easterbrook’s mission to make McDonald’s a “modern, progressive burger company,” says Colin Mitchell, VP-director global brand at the burger behemoth. To become more contemporary, Mitchell’s team, working with Chief Marketing Officer Silvia Lagnado, dug into the past. “We had this vision around feel-good marketing,” Mitchell says. “The idea behind it was very simple—that at its best, McDonald’s is more than just burgers and fries.” The team took inspiration from McDonald’s seminal “You deserve a break today” campaign from 1971, from Needham, Harper & Steers in Chicago and decided it wanted to bring that joyful legacy to every consumer interaction, including the design. In late 2017, the company tapped Turner Duckworth to lead the makeover. Last fall, the first elements of the redesign debuted on various platforms and have continued to roll out in various forms since then. Turner Duckworth broke the project down into three steps: decluttering; highlighting what’s already standout about the brand (introducing those feel-good moments); and identifying latent opportunities that weren’t already being mined. “It was about clearing off the barnacles,” says Tyler Brooks, Turner Duckworth design director. “We wanted to go back to the basics.” “McDonald's brief of ‘making feel-good moments’ made it easy for everybody,” adds Sarah Moffat, Turner Duckworth global chief creative officer. “It’s a bit Marie Kondo: ‘Does this spark joy? Is this a feel-good thing?' It if was, it stayed, if it didn’t, we got rid of it,” she says.

Inside the new visual identity being served up at McDonald's

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