li
Managing director Simon Jones
quickly and they weren't pre-
pared to wait 20 years for nature
to take its course.'
Humanizing the image
The solution was to humanize the existing abstract
image. Initially, time had been the dominant element in
Newell and Sorrell's original concept. But it was gradu-
ally replaced by the human factor. Over 50 illustrators
were invited to add a more personalized touch to the
proposed Rabobank figure. 'They all came up with
something different,' says Sorrell, 'but they all lacked
something essential. Finally, we decided to use photo-
graphy. By using a picture of a real person, we could
then take this back into a more abstract image. The
model was a ballet dancer because they have great poise
and a strong body. Once we had the photography, we
took it and crafted it into what you see there today.'
microcosm of experience and applied it to the bank as
a whole, I'd be a customer tomorrow. Everyone made
us feel so incredibly special. I was supposed to be en-
couraging them, and there they were encouraging us.
At the same time, they were critical and made observa-
tions, but it was done in a way that just made us feel
even more motivated.'
Warm welcome
According to Newell, a lot of design precedents
have been set through this project, but the time-frame
was the most staggering. Work that normally takes two
years was completed in six months. 'This had every-
thing to do with how the people at the bank welcomed
us,' she says. 'It made no difference what level people
were, they all treated us equally. At the start, they let us
run free, which is essential for the creative process. But
they were always there when we needed information or
access.'
National colours
The colours for Rabobank's new house-style had
been decided very early in the process. 'When we made
our initial presentation to the bank's top people, we in-
cluded a picture of the Dutch national soccer team in
their orange shirts. We knew about the royal conno-
tations of the colour orange, and we thought if we
handled this right, we'd come up with something no
one else had. So we thought: let's grab it, take if for
ourselves, and be very Dutch about it. The blue harks
back to the past and links the old with the new.
Originally, we had a lot more orange in our ideas than
has come out now. In the final analysis, the orange is
used in a more subtle way to underline the point and to
warm everything up a bit.'
Getting the best
Much has changed during the developmental pro
cess. Abstraction has become warm and human, in
itially hard colours are now used with great subtlety.
The end result has an impact that no one can question.
'If you had told me at the beginning that we would
eventually produce something this radical, I would not
have believed it,' Jones says. 'When we first presented
it, the reponse was amazing. Everyone was so
positive. It was fantastic. The great difference
about working on this project is that the
bank definitely got the best out of us be
cause of how it behaved. I teil you, if
there is any lesson to be learned here it
would be that if you took that tiny
Raboband International 4
The heart of the matter
The close cooperation is still ongoing today with
the company's team in Utrecht who are still engaged in
the implementation phase of the project. With the
bank's house-style team, they are responsible for the
voluminous manuals that seem to cover the most insig-
nificant items in almost tedious detail. 'At the risk of
sounding hyper-pendantic,' Newell laughs, 'I can't
stress the importance of not letting the identity pro
gram slip. It has to be something that continues to
evolve. The last thing the bank wants is to have to do it
all again in ten years time. So, like a live thing, it has to
be nurtured and built on.' This should not be too diffi-
cult as nicknames for the new symbol have already be
come entrenched in Rabo-speak. 'The guy in the pie'
may seem a little irreverent, but Jones claims he is ac-
tually happy to hear it.'There's something affectionate
about calling it that. The key thing is that people take
it to their hearts, because you see, that is where we
found in the first place. People are only get
ting back something that was
already there...'
