Corporate Express was a major business-to-business supplier of office products, operating under that name from the late 1990s until its acquisition by Staples in 2008. The visual identity of the company evolved through two distinct phases: an early wordmark used by the American company founded in 1986, and a combined identity created after the Dutch firm Buhrmann NV acquired it in 1999.
Design and History
Corporate Express was founded by Jirka Rysavy in 1986 in Boulder, Colorado, initially as a regional office products retailer with 11 employees. The company grew rapidly through acquisitions throughout the 1990s. In 1999, Dutch office-supply company Buhrmann NV acquired Corporate Express for more than $2.2 billion, folding its BT Office Products operations into the new subsidiary and adopting the Corporate Express name for its worldwide office products operations. [1] [2] [3]
Following the 1999 acquisition, designer Mark Tenney was asked to develop a new identity for the acquired company that incorporated the Buhrmann identity mark and the Corporate Express identity text. The resulting combined identity, which paired the Buhrmann mark with the Corporate Express wordmark, served as the company’s global mark for nine years and was featured throughout the world on all corporate materials. [4]
In 2008, Staples acquired Corporate Express, expanding its contract offering to a global market. [5] The Corporate Express brand was subsequently phased out as operations were integrated into Staples’ contract division, Staples Advantage.
Meaning and Symbolism
The Buhrmann identity mark, which became part of the combined Corporate Express logo after 1999, was the corporate symbol of the Dutch parent company. The Buhrmann mark was used alongside the Corporate Express text in the identity developed by Mark Tenney. [4] No documented symbolic meaning for the mark has been published in the available sources.
Typography and Design
The identity created by Mark Tenney combined the Buhrmann identity mark with the Corporate Express identity text, forming a lockup that was applied globally across corporate materials. [4] Specific typographic details, such as the exact typeface used in the wordmark, have not been documented in the available sources.
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