Collins kept Bose's 1960s wordmark and rebuilt the brand around its bars

Bose's range spans speakers, headphones, audio glasses, hearing aids and noise-cancelling; the brand needed to protect a nearly 60-year reputation while reaching new audiences.

Leave the 1960s wordmark untouched except the bars on the B and E — then make those bars the foundational shape of the entire identity

Collins set the strategy as 'Sound is Power' and, with Warsaw type foundry Tekio and in-house creatives, drew a sonic-inspired typeface from the wordmark's italic letterforms. The only change to the hand-drawn 1960s logo: the bars at the B's base and the E's top, which became foundational shapes for expandable forms. An eight-colour palette maps each colour to a note of a musical scale, expanding into a matrix for future products and partnerships, with new motion behaviours to visualise sound.

No market metrics are reported; the system keeps the logo's equity intact while giving a subdued brand its first expressive colour language, built to flex across products and partnerships.

When Bose asked Collins to rebrand, the studio concluded the audio pioneer didn't just need new visuals but 'a renewed story, and that story is what needed a new visual expression'. The answer, unveiled in October 2024, is 'Sound is Power' — a strategic frame for a company whose range spans speakers, audio glasses, headphones, hearing aids and noise-cancelling.

The central move is restraint: Collins left the hand-drawn 1960s wordmark untouched except for the bars at the B's base and the E's top. Creative director Tomas Markevičius said leaving the central logo unchanged protected its equity and integrity 'while enabling a new level of expression' — those bars became the foundational shape for all the identity's expandable forms, and the wordmark's italic letterforms became the basis of a brand typeface developed with Warsaw-based foundry Tekio.

The palette expands from eight core chromatic tones, each representing a note in a musical scale, into a matrix of options for future products, partnerships and communications — a deliberate intensification of a previously subdued colour approach, carried by new motion behaviours meant to help visualise the immersive power of sound Bose creates.

The bars solve the classic rebrand dilemma: change almost nothing, but make the almost count everywhere.

Colour-as-scale gives the system a rationale rooted in the product — sound — rather than taste.

Strategy leads: 'Sound is Power' names the equity before the visuals express it.

Restraint scales: change one element of a heritage mark, then propagate that element everywhere — equity preserved, expression multiplied.

The identity was unveiled in October 2024; no rollout metrics or sales figures appear in the source.