As Gymboree neared 20 years old, it decided it was time for a new branding system for its rapidly multiplying retail stores and play centers. Through the development of a visual vocabulary of colors, shapes and patterns, the company arrived at a system that was flexible enough to translate across all media and graphically varied enough to remain fresh and interesting over time.

Like a child who outgrows his clothes and needs a larger size, Gymboree found that as it grew from a neighborhood play program into a multimillion dollar retail company, it needed a more sophisticated look to express its maturing brand identity.

After all, by 1994, it had been nearly two decades since Joan Barnes, an entrepreneurial mother of two, started a parent-child play program, called Gymboree, at a local community center. The developmental concept for children three months to four years proved so successful that by 1986, Gymboree was operating 200 franchised play programs in four countries.

Among the "baby stroller" crowd, the Gymboree name was so strongly linked to quality, education and fun that starting a retail line of branded toys, children's clothing and parenting products was a natural extension of its business. Gymboree opened its first retail store in 1986, and by 1995, had stores in nearly 280 locations and corporate net sales exceeding $250 million.

But two decades of exceptional growth had taken its toll on Gymboree's original branding system. Its retail offerings had expanded multifold, encompassing more age groups, more items and more frequent product changes a situation that the original identity system wasn't designed to handle. Expansion nationwide also had led to inconsistent graphic interpretations. The logo and store interiors had begun to look dated, and even the company's mascot, Gymbo the Clown, seemed tired.

"Things had been happening so quickly at Gymboree that our people were hiring different designers, and the look of the brand began to deviate," recalls Nancy Pedot, former Gymboree president and CEO who launched the redesign program in 1994. "If you are building a brand, you need to be true to the brand. I like things to evolve and be creative, but I also wanted to make sure that the visual brand impact had certain guidelines."

After interviewing a half dozen design firms, Gymboree selected the San Francisco office of Pentagram, which had earlier revamped The Nature Company's identity. "I think one reason Gymboree was interested in working with us was because it saw parallels with The Nature Company, which had also started with a few local stores and rapidly expanded into a national retail chain," says Pentagram partner Kit Hinrichs, who co-designed the Gymboree identity program with associate partner, Jackie Foshaug.

While Gymboree asked Pentagram to develop a new branding system, it made clear that it wanted to preserve the visual essence that made Gymboree products and materials recognizable as Gymboree.

"Our history has been to make the brand, supported by design, very important," says Gymboree's president and CEO Gary White. "The consistency of what customers see and feel helps to protect the brand."

Pentagram's solution was to create a "visual vocabulary" that included a logotype, color palette and distinctive patterns as its core elements. "From that vocabulary, Gymboree could emphasize and reconfigure different elements as appropriate," Hinrichs explains. "The idea was to create specific key elements with the right tone and attitude and then build a clear but flexible structure that could be easily replicated in all of Gymboree's locations and in all kinds of materials. Having a visual vocabulary to choose from allows the brand to stay fresh and relevant."

H inrichs contrasted this approach with the traditional way of designing a logo and wordmark, putting it in a manual and telling everyone to follow it. "That cookie-cutter approach never represented a true identification of a company. With Gymboree, we took a more holistic look at color, palettes, fabrication materials, the control of other visual elements such as typography, photography and illustration. We developed primary and secondary typographic systems to allow for a more flexible identification program that lets the identity evolve naturally as the company evolves. To have the complete look and feel of Gymboree, we had to visualize the philosophy of the company in all of its printed materials, packaging and signage." The net effect was brighter, more approachable and more contemporary. "The original multicolored logo looked its age," Foshaug says. "We brightened the palette. We also chose a more contemporary styling of the typeface for the logo and introduced pattern into it. Patterns had been an integral part of their products from the beginning, so it seemed natural to include them."

The changeover process met with little resistance. "It wasn't a revolution that scared people," White agrees. "In the stores, we moved from primary colors to warmer, fun colors; from all white walls to maple. Most of our existing mall stores don't have entrance doors; the new ones do. It looks less temporary and more stable. The maple is more sophisticated and looks more important and respectful of our customers."

This spring, Gymboree opened two new stores in New York and a prototype store at a shopping mall in San Jose, California with plans to open 70 in total by year-end. Citing the store on New York's upper West Side, White says, the store was designed to complement its urban environment. "How a brand is translated doesn't only have to follow the McDonald's arches model. The Gymboree brand clearly comes through and still looks like part of the community. It's not some oddball that looked like it was just picked up and put there."

" S tore facades in shopping malls share a common, highly managed environment," Hinrichs says. "In an urban environment, you don't have that same control, so you have to reflect the materials and street vernacular found in the neighborhood in general. The store on Broadway and 82nd expresses Gymboree's patterns on the facade, but it is done in concrete, stainless steel and zinc, practical and relevant materials for use in an urban environment."

The strategy is carried through inside the store. "The way we translate and use the brand is extremely important," says White. "There should be connectivity and consistency between how the product looks and feels, the signage, interiors, fixtures, packaging, the labeling of products, the hang tags. Just as much as saying or reading the name, Gymboree should come through on a visual level. That is extremely hard to do. Everybody wants to put a different bend or twist on it, including myself. We have to protect and guard against confusing the brand, cheapening the brand or keeping it from being the brand."

This commitment to maintaining quality and consistency is a reason that Gymboree designs and manufactures all of its own retail products. Currently that means making 36 full-line product changes a year, with 30-50 items per line. In keeping with its tradition, Gymboree focuses not only on developing styles that children like to wear, but on how they wear them. All clothes are tailored to fit how children really live in them, using appropriate materials with a sophisticated color matching system, called MATCHmatics. The system allows the customer to purchase items from different lines of products and have a coordinated outfit with color consistency.

G ymboree's frequent line changes, while great for keeping the offering fresh and new, has been a labor-intensive challenge for store personnel who are continually changing presentations. To address this problem, the new prototype store, designed by San Francisco architects BAT [an acronym for Bruce Slesinger and Tom Collom], incorporates a number of innovative efficiencies including movable walls on a track system for quick presentation changes. Whole sections can be moved back one bay to allow the new season apparel to come forward. "We can switch walls overnight to change the look of the store and gauge customer response to different products," White says. BAT's Bruce Slesinger adds that the prototype store makes use of maple, a pale yellow color and translucent fixtures that allow light to pass through to create an open, playful feeling. The floor plan is divided into three areas, differentiated by fixtures that make customers visually aware of moving from Cradle Gym to Gym Kids to Gym Grad sections. Carts and tables and perforated fixtures convey a sense of interactivity. "Everything is on wheels, except for the cash desk," Slesinger says.

Gymboree also expects the fixtures and layout of the new prototype store to help sell more coordinated outfits. "We had been wall merchants for the most part," White says. "The prototype store gives us the ability to move our MATCHmatics products down to the floor where customers can see them better." The sectional divisions of the store also allow Gymboree to essentially develop brands within the brand by focusing on different age groups.

G ymboree is also leveraging its brand name by establishing a greater connection between its play centers and stores. Last fall it opened two corporate-run prototype play centers in the Bay Area, one in a shopping mall and one in a strip mall. This is a change from the usual location in private sites such as churches, synagogues and gymnasiums. The prototype play centers are located in malls where Gymboree had an existing store, but not next door to it.

"Our objective in opening play centers in shopping areas is to gain walk-by enrollment," White says. "People walk by, look in the window and ask `What's going on there?' The mall play centers are working extremely well and they have allowed us to let the location be the `brand inviter' versus using traditional direct mail promotions to sell the brand at other sites. We have probably had 75% of our signup enrollment through walk-by."

White adds, "Interestingly, one of our prototype play center sites was there before. We just moved it one door down into a mall and then revamped it. It was amazing. We thought we had been at capacity before and had as many people as could be enrolled. Now all of a sudden with the energy, color and branding coming through, we're signing up new families. That is really the only difference in that site. We moved one door. Boom. We are now at 350 families [up 40%] in the new site."

The new play center location has stimulated daytime business throughout the mall as well. "I'm told that morning business is booming, and there are all these people with strollers walking around," White says.

Gymboree's eye-catching new packaging has also helped to broadcast the company's retail presence and reinforce the perception of value and quality. "The box was designed to look like a gift without having to be rewrapped," Hinrichs explains. "It's another way of doing advertising through non-traditional means." The packaging is also aimed at changing public perception of Gymboree as a gift store. "Instead of a mother thinking, `I got a shirt for Jimmy,' the new packaging makes her feel `I got a gift for Jimmy.' People don't have difficulty paying a little more, if they think they are getting value."

"Some of our largest increases in same store sales came in '94 and '95 when we started changing the logo and introducing maple walls." White adds, "From the Just For You hang tag that goes with the gift box, to the multi-colored tissue, to the band that goes around the box all are coordinated with Gymboree colors. The box is not stamped all over with Gymboree, but you know it is Gymboree." Recently, Gymboree introduced the latest stage of its new branding system in a redesign of its play product packaging. "The quality and core of the products did not change," White says. "The only change was in the packaging. The repackaged products sold so quickly, we ran out of stock." The changeover of Gymboree's branding system has been rolled out in phases since 1994. "Some of our largest increases in same store sales came in `94 and `95 when we started changing the logo and introducing maple walls," White says. "The changeover wasn't the only reason, but it played a major part."

T his year Gymboree plans to brings its store count to 425, with the addition of 70 new sites, including stores in Canada, the UK and Ireland. "We go into neighborhoods with high stroller counts," says White. "We know we have a good store when we have stroller gridlock."

Gymboree is counting on that stroller set to build its business in the future. Already it is seeing that happening. Yesterday's Gym Kids have grown up and are having babies of their own, and the original group of Gymboree parents are now proud grandparents shopping for gifts for their grandkids. Creating a strong identity system that is fresh and enticing and flexible enough to evolve gracefully over time is key to Gymboree's strategy for growing a customer base that is truly transgenerational.