51 Comments

McDonald's, Sainsbury's... Long live the apostrophe.
Mat Dolphin
2012-01-12 11:36:49

The removal of the apostrophe seems to be in keeping with their original decision to rebrand their logo to a sans serif lowercase 'w' to try and seem to be more modern. It's unnecessary, crass and a bit silly. Wonder how long it'll take to put it back in...
Luke Godward
2012-01-12 11:37:36

It's appalling. What's next: magazines abbreviating their names without using any full stops?
Daniel
2012-01-12 12:00:31

I don't buy the 'logic' of this move any more than Venture 3's flawed thinking.

If the brand is trying to regain some of the cachet it once had, then surely it recognises that its core audience remains book lovers as opposed to online bargain hunters, e-readers etc - people for whom something as apparently trivial as an apostrophe actually has some meaning. (Anyone remember the publishing phenomenon that was 'Eats, Shoots, and Leaves'?)

So this appears to be needless tweaking post-rationalised into meaningful change. Full disclosure: I was part of the team that worked on the 'original' repositioning of the Waterstone's brand in 2006 (@ St Luke's / The Nest) that introduced sentence case to the logo, so it's possible that I am swayed by vanity here.
Freddie B.
2012-01-12 12:06:21

If ever there was a place to champion literacy and correct punctuation, you would have though a bookshop would be top of the list.

We may as well all converse in text speak. Pfff WTF
Curator
2012-01-12 12:08:00

"McDonald's, Sainsbury's... Long live the apostrophe."
Mat Dolphin

Boots, Morrisons …?

"It's appalling. What's next: magazines abbreviating their names without using any full stops?"
Daniel

Long live the removal of extraneous punctuation marks.
Kieran
2012-01-12 12:27:04

Not make much difference id imagine they be gone in 18 months top! Although the second design remains my favourite.
dan hopper
2012-01-12 12:28:04

I had made my mind up on the apostrophe, believing it should remain for all the reasons cited above. But after a very brief discussion on Twitter with another designer, I’m actually coming round to Waterstones’ decision (see what I did there?). As the company is no longer owned by Tim Waterstone, changing it to Waterstones doesn’t make it grammatically incorrect. It’s a very fair point.

However it wouldn’t have been called Waterstone’s if it was never founded by Mr Waterstone. Therefore the "s" at the end would never have been there if it wasn’t for this ownership. Ergo, maybe they should’ve just got rid of that as well and made it “Waterstone”. Keeping the “s” will just grate on us pedants.

P.S.
The “.com” in the identity is a worse crime! How very 2000. ;-)
Matt King
2012-01-12 12:31:33

The apostrophe is clealry an old fashioned device, which would be fine if they were selling something traditional and they set their brand in some ancient serif typeface or something.
m0gwai
2012-01-12 13:00:58

Agree with Matt, is the .com really needed in 2012?
Google predictive search is far faster than typing in actual url.
HTDL Design Agency
2012-01-12 13:50:07

love your comment m0gwai
redders
2012-01-12 13:55:59

I think the .com is quite important – it emphasises the point that Waterstones isn't just a high street store, and positions it as a viable alternative to Amazon.
Daniel
2012-01-12 13:59:30

This illiterate one has been going a long time:

SELFRIDGES&CO
Flanagan
2012-01-12 14:49:13

ooh, owch. The rebrand always jarred very badly. The fuzziness of Albert at that size - what an error! How could venturethree have not even considered crafting a hand-drawn logo for such respected brand? Not thei proudest efforts.
Rosie Milton
2012-01-12 14:49:59

pointless discussion. go back to work people.
Harry
2012-01-12 14:52:03

Daniel is right about the.com being important.
Ross Pichler
2012-01-12 14:53:42

I always though that the sans W was the M upturned from the parent company, to try and bring the two inline. Now the good ship HMV is also sinking it looks as if they are trying to distance the two again.

Both shops would do a roaring trade operating as pop up shops, only open over Christmas when people are panic buying, but as long as you can buy online at a huge discount you can stick the apostrophe wherever takes your fancy, it won't make any difference.
Simon
2012-01-12 14:59:53

I agree with Daniel. If you're under siege from Amazon .com is in this case important. I for one think of Waterstone's as a physical bookstore. When in a rush to order a book I confess I think first of Amazon.

In the business end of corporate identity, I'd rather be attacked here for 'being sooo 2000' than lose a single online customer.
Garrett
2012-01-12 15:01:24

With apostrophes on the way out, whats left to get copywriters knickers in a twist?
Nelson
2012-01-12 15:03:38

It is a little disheartening to hear Waterstone’s rebranding again when clearly 2010-12 brand is the better choice as it is both modern and friendly for book readers and websites. Baskerville doesn’t necessary has to be the only font to demand authority and confidence. The problem is when you look at their website the logo seems to get lost. You all seem to have a bee in your bonnet about the apostrophe when the question one should be asking do people like the 2010-12 brand enough without any further changes, or least not having to go back to the future when we live in a world that thinks of the future.
Richard Pashley
2012-01-12 15:12:55

The biggest crime was changing the original Baskerville identity in the first place. Baskerville was, and is, the perfect typeface to represent a bookseller. The money wasted ¬– just a year or so ago ¬¬– in revamping shop fascias and print material etc, was money that Waterstone’s couldn’t afford in the fist place. But it did it anyway in the hope that it would kick start their ailing operation (if only it were that simple). Why do these companies superficially tinker with their identities, rather than take a good deep look at the problem, before picking up a mouse? As for the loss of the apostrophe. That seems sacrilege for a literary organisation to agree to. But it’s the (.com) that I hate. It represents the digital market place that will eventually destroy Waterstone’s. Mark my words.
mike dempsey
2012-01-12 15:15:46

It’s “copywriters’ knickers” Nelson! ;-)

I think it is valid to have “.com” appended to the identity when used on their website (and on ads for their online store). I just hope it isn’t default and appears on the high street above the shops.

Has to be said though that I do actually prefer this identity over the old, new one, despite all I’ve said.
Matt King
2012-01-12 15:23:12

What font they use becomes irrelevent when indecisiveness in business and wasting money to this degree will kill them off in the long run.
James Warfield
2012-01-12 15:31:17

The “.com” in the identity is a worse crime! (from Matt)
No, sir I've found another one : http://www.Waterstones.com !!!
Or another one http://Www.Waterstones.com, caps, lowercases, what a mess !
Sébastien
2012-01-12 15:31:20

Agree with you Mike.

It irritates me that company names now have to be their URL as well. Why? It's not necessary. Especially when it is a shop and not a website. We all know that high street stores have websites too, we don't need it spelling out in the shop name. If it's only used on bags and merchandise etc. that's fine.

I always hated the lowercase sans serif rebrand, so glad they've seen the error of their ways. They'd be better to spend money updating the interiors of some of their stores.

If they will insist on spelling out their company name as a url, I think the apostrophe is unnecessary (as it would be in any url) but then so is the capital W. Drop the .com, and the initial cap and apostrophe are absolutely crucial.
Zoe
2012-01-12 15:38:02

Waterstone(')s will go out of business within two years anyway.
Matt
2012-01-12 15:41:31

@Daniel

In which case their website is in need of some much needed TLC. I wouldn't have even know they had an online outlet. I mean, you have to download a PDF to get a preview of a book. The whole website makes buying online such a long drawn out process.

With regards to the debrand, I was never keen on the Waterstones rebrand by Venturethree, it felt like it was trying a bit too hard and besides the various 'W' marks the brand application was a little off. I can't see how the debrand will change much, unless something is done beyond that Waterstone(')s won't last.

Truth is, can they compete online?
Chris
2012-01-12 15:46:03

Waterstones owns many stones
Dan
2012-01-12 15:48:38

It is quite a shame they are putting a stop to last year's re-brand I think as they had some interesting creatives on the back of it, with the W seen in various styles, whether made of different materials or covered it writings. It made the whole thing rather fresh and exciting compared to the old image which, whilst possibly suiting a bookseller to some extend as some people have highlighted here, was very stuffy and uninspiring.

Reading should be exciting, it should be an adventure of sort, and I thought the visuals tied up with the rebrand fitted this very well. Shame therefore that it's back to stuffy and uninspiring.

I guess bookstores, like record stores, especially chains, will soon be a thing of the past.
Bruno Lasnier
2012-01-12 15:53:12

Never liked the new branding, glad they changed it 'back'.

Shame they had to waste the agency's time and their own money.

Ah well.
Martin
2012-01-12 15:54:13

I see Waterstones have decided to KEEP the apostrophe...

http://pic.twitter.com/FSWBU4oF
Rob
2012-01-12 15:55:13

I understand why they went back to the Baskerville type face as it what we associate with letters in book but generally book lovers like punctuation. This will just anger the customer causing them to become more win trouble than they already are. As someone rightly said it "McDonald's, Sainsbury's... Long live the apostrophe." So why can't they a company which stands for words and therefore punctuation use their single apostrophe. Everyone knows where the apostrophe is on the keyboard and people should know that you don't apostrophe on emails.
Callum McFedries-Pitt
2012-01-12 16:23:16

can they feel every word now? :)
umd
2012-01-12 16:23:22

Waterstone's...

The guys name was Tim Waterstone. The company belonged to him, therefore Waterstone's with a 's.

That's how it should be surely?
Louise Whitmore
2012-01-12 16:31:57

There are some interesting comments posted here but there are also a bunch that, if the shoe were on the other foot, would drive the same people crazy. I am talking about the 'off-the-shelf' or 'I like this one more than that' etc.

Without having more information on the re-brand and then the subsequent 'de-brand' process, it is hard if not impossible to get a real measure of the success or failure of the repositioning. But the question of the re-brand 'reflecting the move online' is an interesting one.

The choice of FS Albert pro by venturethree is an elegant online solution. It renders beautifully on screen at small and large sizes and I would think it would look pretty good in print too.

The 'apostrophe' or not is a bit of a red herring, surely? It is NEVER going to cause any practical problem or confusion among the millions of visitors to its bookshops or website. It is a mark not an essay. As a form of communication it is supposed to be instantaneous and not demand any lengthy and thoughtful reflection.

The re-brand / de-brand of Waterstones [see what I did there? anyone confused what I am talking about?] is likely to look, to anyone outside the industry, as another example of graphic design being merely a question of personal preference,this is the problem with this story – not aesthetics.

Alex Cameron
Alex Cameron
2012-01-12 16:35:51

I agree with Harry!
Luigi
2012-01-12 16:56:45

Nice consistency using the revised Baskerville .com identity on their website but keeping the Albert Pro logo for its url favicon and smartphone apps.

Maybe they should decide what they want and roll it out in one go rather – dribbling all these different versions is only adding to the ridicule/confusion.
Pat
2012-01-12 18:56:58

Image on this page http://www.foyles.co.uk/about-foyles shows that an apostrophe went missing from Foyles sometime between 1906 and now. I think what we are witnessing is nothing less than all out war being waged by this nation's booksellers against the English language.
Kieran
2012-01-12 19:05:24

I had no idea the previous identity was set in FS Albert. Is that 'w' an alternate? because it's not the standard character. Or did VentureThree draw that and add 'aterstones' in the typeface?

Questions, questions…

Ps. Long live Baskerville.
Tom Heaton
2012-01-12 20:44:58

James Daunt is the saviour of Waterstone's (note my use of the apostrophe!). I welcome the return of the uppercase 'W' but agree; save the apostrophe!
Dean Ford
2012-01-12 21:14:07

Quite interesting reading through the comments moaning about this illiteracy when most of them have a so many spelling errors and punctuation missing from their rantings. (Deliberate?)

As for Waterstone's re/de-brand, I actually prefer the 'Baskerville' approach, always have, but this excuse of keeping the branding 'in touch' with the online world and using '.com' after the name surely requires the Waterstone's name to be all lower case?
Smithy
2012-01-13 09:28:05

Mark, language changes, English is full of anomolies, I agree with Michael Rosen, former poet laureaute:

"My position is that the apostrophe is on the way out. It's an inconsistent item anyway; it was invented by printers - not grammarians or linguists - and like a lot of other 'rules' of punctuation is modified by use. No bad thing. […] But is all possession marked with an apostrophe? Oh no. So if we use what have been called the 'possessive pronouns', its, his, hers, yours, ours, theirs - no apostrophe! Why not? er...well, no one really knows.Look at eighteenth century texts and you will find phrases like, let's say, 'the lands were her's'. Even Mr Strict, Bishop Lowth, the inventor of crap grammar, used an apostrophe there. So, if it was a 'rule' then, when did it become a 'rule' to not use an apostrophe in, 'yours' or 'ours'? Answer, it's only a 'rule' if you're the kind of person who thinks this sort of stuff is a 'rule' and not, what I would call a 'convention'. […) 'Haven't' is slightly different because the printers decided that the 'n' had to be shoved up against the 'e'. Now,we're getting into a fairly arbitrary rules of page layout and nothing much to do with ambiguity or any such. (John mentioned 'there', 'they're' and 'their', and in some accents 'we're' 'were' and 'where' overlap too. But the overall usage (dependent on context) is of much more importance in these examples than the use of the apostrophe. Thus, 'there' and, let's say, 'theyre' and 'their' would pose no problems of ambiguity on the page. […] And again,meanwhile, in the explosion of the written word with texting, blogging, forums, chat rooms and the like, people are making up their own rules, they're testing each other's tolerance of what's acceptable and what isn't. Hundreds of new abbreviations are coming in and, I notice, the apostrophe is losing out. It's becoming fiddly to bung in an apostrophe as you're thumbing away on your mobile or whatever."

And that's the key, words, language is all about it's use for people, not rules or dictionaries, you are being a reactionary, just let go!


http://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/politics-and-lies-of-apostrophe.html
noel douglas
2012-01-13 10:36:42

I was showing some friends this the other day, they don't read CR usually and work in other fields, however they all love reading books and shopping at Waterstones.

None of them actually knew anything had changed, ever, no one noticed the re-brand, no one had seen the apostrophe disappear, they figured it had been the same for years and were really suprised at this.

So it's not really a problem is it. I'm sure Waterstones couldn't care less that a bunch of anal designers on an internet form are trying to pull apart their branding, for almost everyone else it doesn't even warrant a second look!
Stephen Ong
2012-01-13 12:34:22

More to the point: claiming to be more in tune with the digital world is a poor excuse for removing an element of punctuation that is already on the signage.



It strikes me that they can either pay to have the remaining store signs remade without the apostrophe (nonsensical), or just take the apostrophes out by hand, in keeping with the currently bodged look of most UK high streets.
KEB
2012-01-13 12:37:00

Some pretty bad kerning in there it must be said. Glad to see the serif 'W' return but it defo needs an apostrophe.
graphicpicnic
2012-01-13 13:54:51

Surely the loss of the apostrophe is purely down to adding the .com and making sure its a browser friendly spelling????? If you tap waterstone's.com into a browser and you'll get an error.
Harrogate Graphic Design
2012-01-13 16:28:56

Don't forget many bookshop browsers may be making their first steps online or even be yet to make them!
Harrogate Graphic Design
2012-01-13 16:31:52

A bookseller contributing to the destruction of the English language!

If correct punctuation is old fashioned so is the book, and Waterstones.com may as well shut up shop anyway.

As for adding .com to the name, now that is old fashioned.

Combined, the two changes are an insult to all the literate customers who still buy books.
Andi Rusyn
2012-01-14 16:25:23

Myself and my team of designers at The Brewery (err, who??... exactly!!!) did the design rebrand above from full caps to cap 'W' and lower case, keeping the apostrophe. This was back in 2006 as part of a retail design overhaul which included shop front signage introducing each branch name.

We made the decision at the time that U&lc would be preferable to all lowercase and keeping the apostrophe was important grammatically and to retain heritage. Unfortunately myself and my team never received any credit for this work which genuinely moved the brand forward.

I was sorry to see the all lowercase version replace this but, as many people have already said, there's a lot of unnecessary tinkering going on with large brands. It's very difficult (if not impossible) for a branding agency to tell a new client that their brand design is fine and doesn't need work.

The move back to U&lc without the apostrophe and with the dot.com is, in my opinion not worthwhile either. The branding and function of signage is getting confused, everyone can find Waterstone's online without putting the URL on the sign. Clearly the MD wants to push their online offer but they were so late to market with this that they are having trouble playing catch up.

In my opinion their rebranding spend over the last few years would have been better spent actively marketing the online offer. Still what do I know, I was just an anonymous designer.
The Resident
2012-01-16 17:40:49

Thank God for that.
You cannot beat the authority of Baskerville.
The Bauhaus influenced 2010 design just didn't suit a bookshop.

Long live the old and now new design!
Liza Whitney
2012-01-17 10:21:58

Like many people i am glad they reverted back to the traditional style. Why is the .com necessary for all the branding?

It would be appropriate for a television or magazine advertisement, but when the logo is going to be shown in a retail space there is no need to mention the website.
Alex
2012-01-17 17:09:17

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