Pentagram redrew AmEx's 1975 blue box in bold so it survives the app-icon age

Bring greater visual continuity to American Express' branding and a more cohesive look across physical and digital touchpoints on a global scale — strengthening a big brand for the small-space digital world, where detailed marks struggle, while staying effective in large-scale applications.

Keep the 1975 blue box — redraw its stacked outlined lettering bold, with outlined-free variants, so one mark works at app-icon size and on a building.

Developed with AmEx SVP Clayton F. Ruenensaal, Pentagram redrew the logotype in bold with type designer Jeremy Mickel; a non-outlined version, in single-lined and stacked forms, serves uses outside the blue box symbol. A cropped larger wordmark reading 'AMEX' provides an alternative logo for Twitter and Instagram, and greater white space makes the brand feel more open and accessible.

The refreshed identity rolled out across all of American Express' physical and digital touchpoints, from smartphone screens to retail installations, for a brand with over 112 million card customers.

Pentagram has refreshed American Express' identity, adapting the finance company's 'blue box' logo first introduced in 1975. Headed up by Pentagram partner Abbott Miller and developed in collaboration with American Express senior vice president of global brand management and design Clayton F. Ruenensaal, the project set out to bring greater 'visual continuity' to branding that had to serve over 112 million business and consumer card customers and 120 bank partners worldwide.

The core problem was scale. 'The challenge for the designers was strengthening a big brand for the small-space digital world, where it can be difficult to make a visual impact with detailed marks,' Pentagram said — while the identity also had to work in large-scale environmental applications. The existing blue box, with its two stacked lines of outlined lettering, was retained, but the lettering was redrawn and rendered in bold so the logo functions at both large and small scales.

Pentagram also developed an alternative logo for platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, cropping the larger wordmark to 'AMEX', and worked with type designer Jeremy Mickel on a non-outlined version of the logotype — in single-lined and stacked versions — for use outside the box symbol. Greater use of white space throughout makes the brand feel more 'open' and 'accessible', and the identity rolled out across all physical and digital touchpoints.

The 1975 blue box had too much equity to discard, but its fine outlines dissolved at app-icon sizes — boldness was the smallest change that fixed the biggest problem.

A dedicated AMEX crop acknowledged that social handles, not logos, are where most people meet the brand daily.

The non-outlined Mickel logotype gave the brand a typographic voice that works where the box cannot.

One system across 112 million cards and 120 bank partners traded novelty for continuity — the brief's actual demand.

For a mark with four decades of equity, the bravest rebrand is the smallest: redraw, don't replace — and sweat the smallest size, because that is where the brand now lives.

The refresh rolled out across AmEx's physical and digital touchpoints. Design Week's readers were unimpressed in the comments — 'extremely lifeless redesign', 'very uninspiring and dull' — with several questioning what Pentagram was paid and noting the cards shown bore no link to the new system.