Citibank

Citibank, one of the most famous banks in the U.S. has more than 160 retail banking throughout the States. Besides its prominent fame, Citibank has also been known for its iconic logo. Created in June 1998, its designer Paula Scher, designed it for the first time on a napkin. It’s astonishing how creativity comes in the most unexpected ways, like this logo, it started off as a sketch on a napkin and turned out to be a widely well recognized logo in the banking industry. At the time it was created, Citibank, also known as Citigroup in that time, had recently shortened its name to ‘Citi’ and had just made a $140 billion merging companies with Travelers Group. As a new corporation, like any other, they needed a new corporate identity and that’s where Paula Scher stepped in. What they were looking for was a way to demonstrate the combination of these two groups and how now they were a whole. Travelers Group was identifiable due to its red umbrella in its logo and Citibank was just a very simple text with a blue background.

What they wanted was a shortened yet easy brand mark that would fit well with the new concept. The end result was the four letter word Citi with a red arc centered right above the‘t’. From the original design, they practically kept the blue and the red, but with a different typeface and the integrated umbrella that interacts with the text. This design not only made it a very simple recognizable logo, but it embodied what they what had in mind; portraying the combined businesses.

Shortening the name to just 'Citi' was a very good idea because this makes it a very simple logo to remember and identify. The arch on the 't' is very good as well because it portrays the umbrella of the other companies logo; this demonstrates that they are now one. A suggestion would be to make the blue a bit lighter. That way the blue and the red have the same value and neither of them compete with each other. Lastly would be kerning because a few letters seem a bit too close and not equally spaced. Adjusting the space between the letters would make it uniformed and visual pleasing.