While it may seem that the Tom Ford logo has remained the same through the years, in fact, you can come across at least two versions. Although their style does not differ much, there are several pretty notable differences affecting the overall impression.
The full name of the designer and filmmaker is Thomas Carlyle Ford. He was born in Austin, Texas, and spent his childhood in the suburbs of Houston, Texas, and in San Marcos, outside Austin.
Having dropped out of Bard College at Simon’s Rock, which he entered at the age of 16, Ford moved to New York City and entered New York University. Later, he studied interior architecture at Parsons The New School for Design. Although he devoted his final year to studying fashion, he graduated with a degree in architecture.
Before founding his namesake brand, Tom Ford worked as the creative director at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent.
In addition to a successful career in fashion, Ford is also known as a filmmaker. He directed the movies A Single Man (2009) and Nocturnal Animals (2016), both of which were nominated for Academy Award.
Similar to the current wordmark, the old logo featured the name of the designer. Here, it was given in the Arial font. This is an extremely popular sans serif typeface and set of computer fonts delivered with all versions of Microsoft Windows, as well as Apple’s macOS. There is sensible distance between the letters of the wordmark.
While this design actually did its job – presented the name of the brand in a perfectly legible manner – it was in no way unique or memorable. This could have been one of the reasons why the company eventually decided to opt for a slightly updated design.
Once again, the design forces behind the brand opted for a minimalistic, utterly utilitarian sans serif type. This time, it appears to be the same type with basically the same proportions of the letters, although the way they are placed seems to slightly differ from its predecessor. You can notice the spaces between the letters have grown much smaller.
The palette of the Tom Ford logo basically uses the same colors as the logos of the majority of fashion companies, black and white. This is a wise approach as it does not limit the variety of backgrounds over white it can be used without the need to change the color of the logo. What makes Tom Ford’s wordmark stand out is that it is more often dominated by black as the black, not white, is typically used as the background color.