Stussy’s logo is incredibly stylish and reminiscent of Japanese characters. Due to its unusualness, it has become a symbol of a whole generation. At the beginning of its career, the company produced surfboards, and now it is a private fashion house offering different types of youth clothing: sportswear, casual, hip-hop, and surf street. Its founder is Shawn Stussy. The location of the central office is the city of Irvine, California. The time of origin is 1980.
Stussy: Brand overview
Founded: | 1980s |
Founder: | Shawn Stussy |
Headquarters: | Irvine, California, U.S. |
Website: | stussy.com |
Before starting a fashion brand, Shawn Stussy made surfboards. In the 80s of the last century, he wrote his name on one of them, using a black marker with a wide stem for this. Then the businessman transferred the image to baseball caps, shorts, and T-shirts, which he began to sell in Laguna Beach directly from the car. The result is a new brand name. Her popularity grew.
Jan Stussy, his uncle and a professor at the University of California, a film producer, engraver, and artist, helped the entrepreneur make a logo from a personal signature. In 1984, Shawn Stussy merged his company with the business of a friend, Frank Sinatra Jr. (just the namesake of the singer). Then they engaged together in the production and sale of clothing. As a result, an interesting print in the form of an emblem allowed the merchant to rise to a high level because he began to supply goods to Europe.
In 1988, business partners opened their boutique in New York’s SoHo district. But the biggest activity in work was observed throughout the 1990s when Stussy stores began to appear in other parts of the United States. Outside the country, the brand was only available in premium specialty stores.
Meaning and History
In 1996, the rights to the trademark passed to Frank Sinatra because the founder left the post of president of the company. Despite the change in leadership, the brand has retained a well-promoted identity – the name with the previous owner’s last name and the logo with his personal signature.
The logo designer is Shawn Stussy himself. This is his signature, which he used to decorate handmade surfboards. His uncle, Jan Stussy, helped him transform it into a full-fledged marketing tool. The engraver corrected the text and added his features, that is, strokes from his signature.
What is Stussy?
Stussy is an American company and its brand of fashionable clothing in the youth-sports style (surf street, hip-hop, casual). He appeared in 1980 in Laguna Beach, California. The current location of the headquarters is the city of Irvine. The brand was founded by Shawn Stussy, a former surfboard manufacturer.
Now the beachwear legend’s visual identity is highly valued and considered stylish. It consists of a set of bold stripes arranged randomly. But this is only at first glance. If you look closely, you can see individual letters. For example, “S” is slanted and goes to the left, “t” is padded at the top with a long crossbar with two dots, “u” and both “s” are zigzag, and “y” is similar to “v” with a vertical line on the right.
Since the company’s original product was associated with extreme sports (surfing), all lines in the logo are sharp, angular, and jerky. Along the edges, they are not even but wavy, resembling water ripples – very small waves. But in fact, these are traces of a black marker with a thick lead, which was used to make the prototype of the modern symbol.
Font and Colors
The inscription on the logo is illegible because it is individual, handwritten in cursory handwriting. We can surely say this is grotesque since all the letters are even, without serifs. The initial palette of the sign is black and white. Dark glyphs were on a light background. In a modern interpretation, the color scheme is variable and depends on the shade of the surface on which the emblem is located.
Stussy color codes
Black | Hex color: | #000000 |
---|---|---|
RGB: | 0 0 0 | |
CMYK: | 0 0 0 100 | |
Pantone: | PMS Process Black C |