Here’s the thing about rebrands: they’re not just about slapping on a shiny new logo. A brand is an ecosystem of meaning, emotions, and experiences that lives far beyond the design. Jaguar hasn’t been top of mind for a while—except maybe when you see a vintage E-Type cruising by and think, “Wow, remember when Jaguars were cool?” A legacy brand being “forgettable” is way more dangerous than a controversial logo. Forgettable is death in today’s market. Controversy? That’s life support with a megaphone.

A New Roar: Why Standing Out Matters

The modern car market is crowded as hell. Luxury brands like Porsche and Tesla dominate mindshare, and electric upstarts are making disruption their personal brand. Jaguar was stuck in a lane of lukewarm association: luxury-ish, performance-ish, but ultimately not commanding enough ish to compete. They needed to do something radical to reclaim attention.

This rebrand plants a flag: Jaguar isn’t here to linger quietly in the background. Love the change or despise it, but the sheer volume of reaction shows one critical fact—Jaguar is back in the conversation. And for a brand that was fading into irrelevance, being talked about again is invaluable.

Here’s a hard truth marketers and brand owners often forget: most of the loudest voices online aren’t actual customers. They’re cost-sumers—people who cost you time, resources, and emotional energy without contributing a dime to your bottom line. These are the people loudly tearing apart Jaguar’s new look without ever intending to step foot in a dealership or open their wallets.

Forgettable is death in today’s market. Controversy? That’s life support with a megaphone.

Cost-sumers vs. Customers

Brands that chase approval from cost-sumers are doomed to dilute their identity and focus on the wrong metrics. The purpose of this rebrand isn’t to pacify Twitter branding enthusiasts; it’s to reignite interest in actual potential buyers. People in the market for a $100,000 electric luxury vehicle aren’t rage-posting about font kerning—they’re evaluating how this aligns with their lifestyle, aspirations, and future purchases.

This is why brands need to adopt selective hearing. The real measure of success is whether Jaguar can now attract modern luxury buyers who might have otherwise dismissed them.

The Real Critics: Branding People

It’s worth noting that much of the backlash is coming from branding professionals. Why? Because Jaguar broke an unspoken rule: don’t mess with the playbook. Many in the design and branding community love to shout “disruption” but cling to convention when it actually happens. The same people who roasted Gap for their logo swap or ridiculed Tropicana for reimagining their packaging are likely leading the Jaguar backlash.

What these critics miss is that sometimes different works. Gap abandoned their logo refresh in fear, but Tropicana recovered from initial backlash to remain one of the most recognizable OJ brands globally. Change takes time to settle, and public opinion is often a knee-jerk reaction driven by nostalgia and resistance. Jaguar’s job isn’t to win over designers; it’s to sell a vision of luxury, performance, and exclusivity.

Rebrands Are More Than Logos

Let’s zoom out: a logo is not a brand. The rebrand isn’t just about Jaguar’s new emblem or typeface; it’s a shift in how the company positions itself for the future. It signals a focus on modern luxury, electrification, and a younger, affluent demographic who care about sustainability and aesthetics over tradition.

Will it work? That depends on whether Jaguar follows through. Rebranding isn’t magic—it’s a promise. If the cars, customer experience, and marketing campaigns fail to deliver, the critics will be right. But if Jaguar uses this rebrand as a foundation for meaningful change, they’ll prove that the haters are just noise.

Stop Freaking Out. Start Watching.

To everyone freaking out about the rebrand: chill. This isn’t the end of Jaguar; it’s the start of something new. Whether that something is a roaring comeback or a quiet whimper will take time to see. But at least Jaguar is taking a chance, and for a brand that was teetering on the edge of irrelevance, that’s a hell of a lot better than standing still.

Critics might say this is the death of the brand, but I see it differently. It’s the rebirth of a brand willing to take a stand, turn heads, and claw its way back into the conversation. And that, my friends, is exactly what Jaguar needed to do.

Saul Colt is an award-winning and somewhat notorious real-world and online marketing leader and the founder of The Idea Integration Company, a 29-person creative shop staffed with alumni from Facebook, Wall Street Journal, Mad Magazine, Disney, and The Simpsons, specializing in marketing, advertising, word of mouth, and experiences for his clients that exceed expectations. Saul has been transforming the world of experiential marketing and community building for over two decades and has no plans to stop any time soon.

This was originally posted on Saul Colt’s LinkedIn newsletter, Saul’s Ideas.af.

Images: “Copy Nothing” ad © Jaguar.

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Trend forecasting season is upon us, and with it, we get a glimpse of what will be big in the next year or so. Whether it’s emerging styles, innovative new materials, or broader industry shifts, trend reports are a useful starting point for us creatives – particularly at the beginning of new projects. It’s how we look for new streams of innovation, where we go for visual inspiration, and preempt what’s going to resonate with the audiences we’re trying to win over.

But they can be flawed, too. Everyone uses them – which can lead to homogeneity – and they often look backward. How many times have we heard that ‘co-creation’ and ‘slow living’ are going to be big? To what extent can we actually feed these themes into a brand’s creative process to create something fresh and unique?

At the core of everything we do is truly understanding our audiences. We need to know who they are, what they’re into, what they want. We need to be so attuned with the zeitgeist that we know what they need before perhaps even they do. Looking at trend reports can be helpful indicators, as is the industry’s go-to consumer analysis and competitor research. But beyond that, we need to be looking at culture – at the smaller pockets of activity that are driving larger cultural shifts and turning these insights into creative opportunities that cut through.

Reading the Zeitgeist

A good (and often overlooked) place to start is digging into online communities and forum threads like Reddit and Tattle to gather authentic, real-time insights into consumers’ pain points, desires, and expectations. By looking for recurring themes in discussions and paying attention to what products, features, or topics generate the most buzz, brands can anticipate what will resonate most with their audience.

It’s something that Lucky Charms did well. After spotting how deep rooted the cereal’s ‘marbits’ (marshmallow pieces) appreciation was among fans, LOVE worked with Lucky Charms to create limited-edition marbit-only packs. The response to these was wild – revealing the kind of hype usually reserved for fashion and streetwear drops. The Instagram post announcing the launch became the brand’s most-liked post ever (with no spend attached) and was reposted by many fans, including celebrities like Cardi B.

My point is you need to go where the people are. If you want to appeal to the Chinese consumer, read a trend report that gives you an overview of the most current themes. However, to be more successful, you must embed yourself in these communities, using popular platforms like Weibo and WeChat to get a richer understanding of the culture. What music are they listening to? What TV do they watch? What’s their sense of humor like? Which subcultures are emerging?

Some brands are going one step further, even building these online communities themselves. Take LEGO, which has created a crowdsourcing platform called ‘LEGO Ideas,’ allowing anyone to submit potential ideas for new sets. If an idea receives over 10,000 votes, the LEGO board reviews it; if the idea is accepted, the creator receives 1% of the product’s revenue and a credit in the instructions. This direct engagement with its audience means that LEGO always knows what it wants and can make sure to deliver it.

Creating New Aesthetics from Deeper Insights

These types of insights can also act as signposts for new visual directions. Vacation sunscreen is a great example of this. Noticing a growing wave of nostalgia for simpler times and a romanticizing of the past amidst the turbulence of the last few years, Vacation set out to make sunscreen fun again. The entire brand looks like a time capsule from 80s Miami, tapping into the kitsch of retro ads like those for Club Med, tied together with over-the-top ridiculousness that brings humor back to the category. It sticks because there’s a wider awareness there – the brand recognizes its role in the world and, therefore, isn’t selling itself as ‘truly life-changing’ or ‘an absolute must-have.’ Instead, the brand is saying that we know people are in need of some fun, and we’re here to bring that.

This summer, Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ brought a similar cultural awareness. The brat aesthetic didn’t just fall out of the coconut tree. It plays into the desire for messiness, chaos, and non-conformity that’s taking over various corners of the internet. It’s a response to the millennial minimalism and perfectly curated online personas that dominated the 2010s, which many have grown tired of – especially as AI now poses the biggest threat to authenticity. Brat’s identity — its acid green and blurry typeface, mixed with its noughties excess and rave culture — took off because it was in tune with the current mood. This was only amplified when Charli started posting various memes and dances that turned brat into a viral phenomenon. She knows her fans, and she knows what they want. How? Because she spends time with them where they are.

So, while trend reports can offer a helpful starting point, real creative impact comes from getting closer to your audience by understanding their world and what really matters to them. Creative impact is about going beyond the predictable and tapping into the undercurrents of culture that trend reports often miss, using what you find to create experiences for people that actually connect. In doing this, we can help brands stand above the noise, create more meaningful relationships with audiences, and build lasting impressions.

Steve Pearce is the managing director at LOVE, a culture-first brand design and experience agency. A believer in big ideas, Steve champions brands brave enough to be disruptive, helping the likes of Jaguar, Land Rover, LVMH, and Nike achieve commercial success.

Header image: LOVE rediscovered Andy Warhol’s inclusive take on beauty to create a striking new concept for SK-II. All images courtesy of LOVE.

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Mostafa Asadollahi was among the first graduates of the Graphic Design program at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, in 1976. Unlike the previous generation of graphic designers, mainly painting graduates, Asadollahi studied graphic design academically, though he had previously studied painting at the Tehran School of Fine Arts. Asadollahi found influence in teachers such as Morteza Momayez and Jalal Shabahangi in the field of graphic design and by professors like Karl Schlamminger, Rouin Pakbaz, Sima Kouban, Violette Mottahedeh, and Parviz Tanavoli, who taught the foundations of art. He describes that period: “Part of the exercises in college were related to the pure and essential expressions of graphic design, where we sought concepts. There, I developed an interest in simple and unadorned graphic design: the fewest fonts and colors for the greatest expression.” Subsequently, Asadollahi’s graphic design oeuvre draws on geometry, which is influenced by modernism and constructivism. His refined approach later incorporated classical Iranian art, making him one of Iran’s most unique and celebrated graphic designers.

Clockwise, from upper left: (1) Poster, The 9th Tehran International Poster Biennial, 2007; (2) Logo, Tehran International Poster Biennial, 2004; (3) Poster, Book Week, 1993; (4) Logotype, Kalameh weekly magazine, 1992; (5) Logotype, International News Network, 2001

Mostafa Asadollahi’s influence in my life reflects his generous nature and professional character as a mentor, graphic designer, friend, and colleague. All three roles hold equal priority; just as his role as a designer was of particular significance, his roles as a teacher and colleague were equally important. Asadollahi’s aesthetic, which made use of the three primary shapes, makes me think of each as an aspect of his influence: squares symbolizing his role as an educator, triangles a nod to his identity as a designer, and circles encompassing his professional persona.

Mentor

My most fundamental relationship with Mostafa Asadollahi involves his mentorship. He was one of the most influential, disciplined, and capable instructors during my studies at the College of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran in the 1990s. Having dedicated nearly three decades of his professional life to education, his passion for teaching was evident, paying attention to each student’s needs and supporting their growth. He was a beloved educator. His classes, especially those on poster and packaging design, are fond memories of my studies in the early 1990s. Asadollahi modeled strategy, discipline, and structure in the graphic design practice, which significantly impacted my work. His authorship of three books from the “Graphic Design Fundamentals for Visual Communication” series, including Environmental Graphic Design (2016), The Language and Expression of Imagery (2018), and Poster Design (2022), is the result of over five decades of teaching and professional experience.

Graphic Designer

Following in the footsteps of great designers such as Sadegh Barirani, Morteza Momayez, Ghobad Shiva, Mohammad Ehsaei, Farshid Mesghali, and Ebrahim Haghighi, I found Mostafa Asadollahi to be a uniquely distinguished graphic designer. Initially, I found his works overly rigid, but as I became more familiar with his perspective, I realized that he was a graphic designer unlike any who came before or after. One of his most brilliant works, a poster for the 5th Biennial Exhibition of Works by Iranian Graphic Designers (1996), helped me grasp the depth of his point of view as a graphic designer. In the poster, the tree balances simplicity and visual complexity, a nod to the dynamism of the graphic design profession. This work opened my eyes to his earlier poster masterpieces—such as the one for the Iranian Cultural Exhibition in Almaty (1992) and later works like the Book Week poster (1997). Asadollahi also designed remarkable logos for various companies and institutions, including Asia Insurance (1990), International News Network (2001), and the Tehran International Poster Biennial (2004), which, after nearly three decades, remain fresh, effective, and relevant.

Left: Poster, Exhibition of Iranian Culture in Kazakhstan, 1992; Right: Poster, Book Week, 1997

Logotypes: (Top) Day Bank, 2009; (Bottom Left) Asia Insurance Company, 1990; (Bottom right) Taban Printing, 1996

Friend and Colleague

The Iranian Graphic Designers’ Society (IGDS), established in 1998 through the persistence of Morteza Momayez and the collective efforts of several graphic designers, played a significant role in my relationship with Mostafa Asadollahi as a friend and colleague. During the three years (2003 to 2006) when he served as the board of directors president, I had the opportunity to work closely with him as the board treasurer. At that time, in addition to teaching and his professional graphic design work, he dedicated a large portion of his daily schedule to guild activities, organizing, and managing the profession of graphic design. This aspect of his personality reminded me that graphic designers must pay attention to industry and professional matters alongside their educational and professional responsibilities to ensure strong and enduring societies (outside of the governmental realm).

Posters, left to right: Commemoration of the Cultural Heritage & the International Museum Day, 2002; Polish Posters 2, 1973; Poster, Coffee-House Painting Exhibition, 2007

In 2019, when he was living in Toronto, his collection of works, Fifty Years of Graphic Design by Mostafa Asadollahi: 1968–2018, was published in Tehran. I brought him a copy on a trip to Toronto, but I couldn’t resist asking if I could open the package to have the first look. It was a fitting and comprehensive look at Asadollahi’s life and career. Though Mostafa Asadollahi, the patient teacher, brilliant graphic designer, and my responsible friend and colleague, is no longer with us, his legacy lives on among Iran’s most influential graphic designers.

Majid Abbasi is the design director of Studio Abbasi, an internationally active studio based in Tehran and Toronto. He leads design projects for start-ups, non-profits, and cultural institutions, specializing in visual identity and wayfinding. A member of IGDS and AGI, Abbasi contributes to the global design scene as an instructor, jury member, and writer. From 2010 to 2020, he was editor-in-chief of Neshan, Iran’s leading graphic design magazine. He is currently editing a book on the history of Iranian graphic design.

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