When I joined T.J. Maxx, the stores and the website looked like two different brands. I merged the teams, then rebuilt the identity from the belief up: story, voice, design, photography and pattern, written as one system for the in-house team, brand partners and outside vendors.
Before any design, one sentence everyone could repeat: help her live life to the maxx. The Maxx Story sets the mission, the four tests of value, who she is, and an architecture that ends in two words, individuality amplified.
Every woman’s wingwoman. Five dials set the tone, so a store sign, a subject line and a social caption all sound like the same person.
A 51-page guide built on three decisions: red comes first, one typeface is the signature, and every shape is cut from the logo.
Everything starts with red, followed by black and white. A family of sister reds adds depth without leaving home.
Helvetica Neue as a signature, and eight ways to set it big and bold: bars, verticals, borders, paths and a ticker.
Everything is derived from the logo, so everything has a purpose: the circle from its dots, the X factor from its double X.
Big, bold, colorful life, caught on camera. One vision for casting, styling, stills, light and sets, so a single shoot could serve stores, site, email and social.
Three families of pattern, signature, geometric and organic, each one drawn out of the letters of the logo.
The system at work: the 2021 relaunch of the site, in the brand’s own red, type and voice.
One team, one voice, one look, across more than a thousand stores and the website.
