ASOS is a British online fashion retailer founded in 2000 by Nick Robertson and Quentin Griffiths under the name AsSeenOnScreen, an acronym that later became the official brand name. The company’s visual identity has centered on a typographic wordmark since its earliest days, with the current lowercase logo introduced in 2008. The mark is used across the retailer’s website, app, packaging and marketing materials.
Design and History
The original ASOS logo, created in 2000, displayed the full company name AsSeenOnScreen in a modern, minimalist typeface with black as the primary color and blue as a secondary accent. In 2003, the company simplified its identity by adopting the acronym ASOS as its official name, presenting the four letters in uppercase within a contemporary, bold typeface. The 2003 version also added the tagline “The Online Fashion Store.” [1]
In 2007, ASOS commissioned the London design agency Household to reposition and rebrand the company as it expanded into international markets and sought to appeal to men, women and children. Household developed a new brand vision for ASOS and created a flexible identity system used across marketing, sales and product, for both online and offline applications. The agency described the typographic style as exploring “the contrast of the tightly set characters in the logo,” giving the brand a sense of pace and edge particular to the ASOS experience. [2]
The rebrand culminated in a new lowercase logo designed by Ben Lewin and introduced in 2008. [3] Retail Week reported that the e-tailer would reveal the revamped, lower-case logo in March 2008, describing it as “more unisex” and designed to appeal to both its female and increasingly expanding male customer base. [4] The 2008 wordmark adopted a wider, less stylized lowercase typeface while retaining black as the dominant color. [1]
In 2021, ASOS underwent a complete brand strategy and identity overhaul, after which the company engaged Oliver Milburn to condense roughly 140 pages of brand strategy into a 35-page global brand book to unite its communications worldwide. [5]
Meaning and Symbolism
The ASOS name originated as an acronym for AsSeenOnScreen, reflecting the company’s original purpose of selling clothing and accessories seen on celebrities and television programs. Although the name no longer carries that literal meaning, the company is still generally written as an uppercase acronym in text, with the lowercase treatment reserved for the logo itself. [3]
The lowercase wordmark was positioned as a more unisex identity, intended to broaden the brand’s appeal beyond its original female-focused audience. [4]
Typography and Design
The current ASOS wordmark is a typographic logo set entirely in lowercase letters. Household, the agency behind the 2008 identity system, described the design as featuring tightly set characters that create contrast and pace within the wordmark. [2] The logo has been consistently rendered in black, a choice that has remained a defining element of the brand across its various iterations. [1]
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