When we arrived in 1985, we wanted to create a look and a logo. We chose British Racing Green, partly because we liked the colour, and partly because our competitors were using burgundy or blue. The black and gold shopfront became green and gold, and we had a logo that reflected a traditional hanging sign. It was an oval showing a pestle and mortar, historically associated with pharmacies, with the Reeds name above.
In those far-off days of the eighties, logos were created by designers in workshops rather like mediaeval monks in scriptoria. The lettering was rubbed on from large Letraset sheets, so we were limited to available typefaces, and the logo was drawn freehand by an artist. They then made a bromide (rather like a photographic slide) from which copies could be made. There were two difficulties with this - matching the colours was inexact (you'd be surprised what some printers thought British Racing Green was), and as the logo was enlarged it tended to blur.
Anyway, we finished up with this:
A quarter of a century later, we thought this looked a bit sombre and it needed recreating anyway. Having seen samples of their work, we asked Creative Direction in Walsingham Place to come up with some proposals for a new look.
Of course, there is more to that than just a new logo and colour scheme, but I'll save the rest to tease you. For now, we'll show off the logo we chose. Although we said we had a completely open mind about colours, we plumped for two shades of jade.
The pestle and mortar are still there (though drawn more realistically) but now they've been joined by a carboy. The lettering is more modern and the word "pharmacy" reminds people of what we do.
We're very pleased with it and you'll see it more often - embroidered on the new staff uniforms for a start, thanks to Alison and Monty next door to us at Keywear.
We would have done this whether we were moving or not, but it should help to give the new pharmacy a fresh look without breaking with our past.
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