Black Friday is the traditional discount parade that hits brands in November. But besides discounts, it is also a parade of brands and their logos, as the largest manufacturers around the world have been competing for decades in brightness and ingenuity to attract the maximum number of customers during Black Friday. Today we will tell you about the history of this sales festival and how the visual identity of brands changes especially for this event.
Black Friday is the world’s most high-profile annual shopping event, which traditionally kicks off the New Year’s Eve sale season, the busiest shopping period of the year. Black Friday is referred to as the day following Thanksgiving. Due to the fact that this holiday has no fixed date, and is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November, Black Friday falls between November 23 and 29. But let’s find out how it all started in the first place
The origin story of Black Friday began in 1941 when President Roosevelt signed a decree declaring the fourth Thursday in November as the national Thanksgiving holiday. This innovation guaranteed Americans an extra week for holiday shopping.
Initially, the phrase “Black Friday” was not associated with anything good, because it meant the collapse of the gold market on September 24, 1869. In the following years, the term was used for other stock market crises on Wall Street. The situation changed in the second half of the 20th century. For the first time “black” sale Friday was called “black” in 1975 by public transportation drivers and Pennsylvania state police officers. Again, it was not for a positive reason. The fact is that because of the fuss and frantic pursuit of gifts for Christmas, there was heavy congestion on the roads, which made life in the cities very difficult.
Thus, as early as the 1980s, all Pennsylvania newspapers regularly referred to the day after Thanksgiving as “Black Friday”.
The tradition of holding global sales began to spread in the mid-20th century and became not just a tradition, but part of a social ritual. With the mass transition of trade to online “Black Friday” began to grow, turned almost into a month, and at the same time acquired additional days of maximum discounts.
As for visual identity, all brands develop their new banners and posters for Black Friday, and some even change their logos. There is no hiding from banners that say “Buy at a discount!”, “Only on Black Friday!”, “Discounts up to 80%” neither in real life nor on the Internet. Such aggressive marketing attracts the attention of even those who have never heard of Black Friday before.
What is the peculiarity of the Black Friday logo? First of all, it is a color scheme based on black. Most often it goes in combination with white and red, but some brands choose more interesting solutions.
If we talk about a certain style, there is no such thing. The main things here are brightness, massiveness, and conspicuousness. Many brands choose just bold uppercase lettering as the main element of banners, however, they can be accompanied by interesting graphics or stylized corporate emblems.
When it comes to online sales, which in recent years have surpassed physical sales even during Black Friday, banners are often animated and very bright, with the addition of fireworks or interactive options such as gift opening or a discount wheel.