Brancher Frères was a French printing ink manufacturer, founded in Paris in 1840, that commissioned Swiss type designer Adrian Frutiger to redesign its corporate identity in the 1960s. The project is notable in Frutiger’s career because it paired a logo redesign with a custom corporate typeface, the Alphabet Brancher, inspired by the company’s own viscous ink.
Design and History
The company’s original logo was a beehive, chosen by Louis Brancher when he took over the firm in 1880 as a symbol of an active family community creating a quality product. More than one hundred years later, the beehive was still in use on the company letterhead.[1]
In 1960, Frutiger began working for Brancher by redesigning this existing beehive logo.[2] The first redesign was carried out in the in-house typographic studio of the French type foundry Deberny & Peignot, where Frutiger was then working.[1] Frutiger noted that although the beehive association initially seemed somewhat dated, the image of the beehive prevailed during the redesign.[1]
Later, in cooperation with Bruno Pfäffli, Frutiger created a complete corporate design for Brancher, applying the logo, the custom typeface and eight company colors across all stationery and advertising materials.[2] The beehive underwent further stylization during this phase.[2] A slightly modified version of Frutiger’s logo was still in use at the time the project was documented.[2]
Meaning and Symbolism
The beehive motif carried a documented meaning from its origin: Louis Brancher chose it as a symbol of an active family community creating a quality product.[1] The metaphor also connected naturally to Brancher’s business: the viscous printing ink and equally viscous honey served as a source of inspiration for Frutiger’s design work for the company.[3]
Typography and Design
Frutiger incorporated the design language of the beehive into the custom corporate typeface he created for Brancher, rounding off the corners of the characters to echo the hive’s forms.[2] The Alphabet Brancher was designed between 1971 and 1972, according to the collection of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich.[4]
Logo Index is an independent educational archive covering logos, visual identities and graphic design history. All trademarks and brand assets remain the property of their respective owners.
