At the Obama Presidential Center gift store, shoppers buy into a new brand

FastCompany: The hope of the designers behind the newly opened Obama Presidential Center is that departing shoppers will look toward the future and not back to the past. While there are plenty of shirts, hats, and totes that feature former President Barack Obama’s rising sun logo, the logo itself looks a little different. It’s rendered in a single color rather than the old red and blue campaign colorway, and it now features the center’s name in its updated Gotham typeface . The Obama Presidential Center Shop didn’t recreate any old merchandise, like you might see at other presidential libraries, either.

Instead, its goods demarcate an evolution of the brand. [Photo: Obama Presidential Center] The center’s leadership see the 1,800-square-foot retail store as one part of its overall culture, just like the surrounding artwork , exhibits, playground, restaurants, and entire campus. The thinking goes that the mementos visitors can purchase there will inspire them to take what they felt on-site home with them.

[Photo: Obama Presidential Center] “We want them to take [their purchase] home and cherish it and remind them of our purpose, which is to help people be inspired, and then feel the sense of empowerment to bring the change that they feel in our culture back home to their own communities,” Valerie Jarrett, CEO of the Obama Foundation, tells Fast Company .

“There’s something about the tangible product at the end of that journey that is really meaningful to people.” [Photo: Obama Presidential Center] The theme of the shop’s retail strategy is “Tools for Change.” Its top-selling items so far include a $50 green sweatshirt that says “Hope” on the front, an $80 hooded sweatshirt and $35 cap that reads “Obama Presidential Center” in a script font that wasn’t on trend when Obama last ran for office, and a youth hooded sweatshirt that says “It’s Up To Us.” [Photo: Obama Presidential Center] The gift shop has so far been more successful than the center anticipated.

It’s had to add kiosks outside and around the campus to help manage foot traffic to the store itself. The shop has products from 69 vendors, 45% of which are diverse- or women-owned, and 20% of which are local businesses, such as Circa Ceramics, which makes mugs, and Black Girls Jump Inc., which makes a jump rope that honors the former first lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign. Jewelry brands the former FLOTUS has worn before are also current vendors, including Chan Luu.

And ByChari, which created the “Vote” necklace Obama wore during her 2020 speech at the Democratic National Convention, designed a $10 “Vote” gold-plated, sterling silver pin on sale in the shop. [Photo: Obama Presidential Center] “It’s sort of easy for us to use the rising sun, and the Obama blue, and the font that everybody is familiar with,” says Michael Strautmanis, the Obama Foundation’s chief corporate affairs officer. He admits that when the center’s design team came forward with ideas for products in colors like pale yellow and lavender, he didn’t get it at first.

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The article discusses a significant evolution of a well-known brand in a culturally relevant context, making it impactful and relevant, though the concepts of modernizing branding and retail experiences are not entirely new.