News that the Italian luxury brand Salvatore Ferragamo has introduced a new logo and dropped the founder’s first name wouldn’t ordinarily warrant holding the front page. When corporations the world over are in sway to the cult of woke, though, we know there could be more to the rebrand than aesthetics.

Ferragamo’s new logo –– disclosed at the recent Milan Fashion Week –– departs from its more refined, italicized insignia modeled on the founder’s handwriting. The new typography is all capital with sharp-edged letters –– sans serif, bold, and evocative of a starkness and simplicity that reminds of Italy’s Aeolian islands.

That’s where the god Aeolus was once believed to rule the winds. “Far from being just a logo, it is a program, which will frame and direct the new chapter that is about to be written,” Ferragamo’s chief executive, Marco Gobbetti, said.

What might this new chapter entail? For the simplicity of Ferragamo’s new logo is met by its apparent likeness to the logotypes of other luxury brands that have also opted to shed their prior skins — among them, Burberry, Yves Saint Laurent (now Saint Laurent), and Diane von Furstenberg. 

The redesigned identities appear rigid and bleak, their typefaces all curiously resembling Gotham. In their metamorphoses, too, the fashion houses are not alone. For this steady drift toward hyper-simplification appears to have also reached the hallowed halls of universities and august publishing houses.

In its new logotype, Oxford University Press has replaced the coat of arms of its namesake, the University of Oxford, with a single, solitary letter. Where once was the inscription Dominus Illuminatio Mea (“The Lord is my light”) now stands an “O,”  like President Obama’s 2008 campaign branding.

The Catholic University of Leuven’s motto, Sedas Sapientiae (“Seat of Wisdom”), too, has been replaced with a bare “KU.” The image of the Virgin Mary, to whom the university is dedicated, has been removed. The list of institutions casting aside their historic tetherings is long.

Logos bear significance for their ability to captivate those who encounter them. Today, in an age where much is personalized and customizable, a self-interpellation of, “Hey, that’s me,” is expected to greet the consumer. For this, the vacuity of the new designs is likely fitting. A blank canvas can be cast however one likes. It can become whatever one desires.

To fulfill their raison d’être, insignias must indeed evolve with the times. Yet much of their function also resides in their ability to capture and convey the lifeblood of that which they represent, to tell tales of creation, of tradition, and of those who have gone before. A logotype is an identity –– a mark of individuality and a resounding affirmation of, “Hey, this is me.” 

Yet how can a thing –– whether a fashion or publishing house –– be distinct if it portrays itself as but one of many?

In our contemporary woke moment, equity is en vogue. In its name, statues have been toppled and boulevards renamed. The expectation is of a kind of societal leveling that would dispense with history and its inevitable troubles, with hierarchy, and with excellence. If only we would all be blank slates now.

“The equity of Florence is in the culture of the company: that led me to the choice of a classic font,” the designer of Ferragamo’s new logo, Peter Saville, said.

Often we are told that the remaking of identities might give new style to old character. That it might point the way to more express self-portraits that seamlessly transcend past and present. Often, this is so. Yet the success of such an exercise lies in its ability to retain the past and, as such, remain unique.

For any given thing is nothing except its past. It is made up of the whole of its being until this moment –– apart from which, it is nothing. To strip away its heritage, then, is to deny its existence. This is the ostensible aim of the woke, who are as if in a permanent state of war with the old world and its vestiges. 

Such, then, is the challenge for Ferragamo, for Oxford University Press, and for all brands forced to navigate the present moment: to balance public desire with legacy. Accessibility with distinction. To guard the past while charting a new course. To resist the woke mob before it’s too late.