After almost 90 years of building cars, Jaguar has today revealed what we can expect from its transformation into an all-electric luxury brand, offering a first glimpse at its new brand identity. At an exclusive briefing in Jaguar Land Rover’s MIdlands HQ, design boss, Gerry McGovern, told Electrifying.com: "This reimagining of the brand has been years in the making. We started with a radical change to the brand itself, and then the car followed."

Acknowledging that the new approach is bold and divisive, McGovern—who enlisted industrial and UX designers to work on the project—went on to tell Electrifying.com: "It will make people feel uncomfortable, and it will polarise."

Operating under the bold banner of Exuberant Modernism, Jaguar’s iconic symbols—including its marque, badge, and Leaper—have all been transformed. The briefing was peppered with words like "vivid," "exuberant," and "mould-breaking.", while McGovern and the senior team including CEO Rawdon Glover frequently quoted Jaguar founder Sir William Lyons, who famously said, “A Jaguar should be a copy of nothing.”

Jaguar’s redesign starts with a completely new brand identity. Central to this transformation is the Device Mark, a modern reinterpretation of Jaguar’s logo. This striking geometric design blends uppercase and lowercase letters in a new bespoke font described as "exuberant," a word the team clearly believe has captured the spirit of Jaguar’s transformation. This custom typeface is expected to be three-dimensional when applied to vehicles.

The familiar Leaper, once the iconic leaping Jaguar figure gracing the bonnets of Jaguar’s most famous models, has been reimagined. Now referred to as a Makers Mark, the Leaper appears as an engraving on a brass plaque, created in collaboration with local craftspeople. This plaque will age naturally over time, developing a patina that highlights Jaguar’s focus on timeless design and craftsmanship. 

Another striking element of the redesign is the Strikethrough, a bold slash graphic of 32 lines prominently featured in the presentation, they appear on the Makers Mark behind the Jagaur and are set to feature throughout the design of both the forthcoming concept car and the production model, set for release in 2025. And you can expect to see some bold colours on both those cars too, with the brand once again using the word ‘exuberant’ to describe the forthcoming colour palette.

Those at the briefing were keen to point out this exuberant reimagining was part of Jaguar’s “move away from mediocrity,” a decisive statement that Rawdon Glover denied was an admission of failings in Jaguar’s current lineup. Instead, he pointed to the fact that, as a mass-market brand, Jaguar had been too focused on pushing for volume under the ZEV mandate, which made their approach “all about the monthlies so we could get the company car market.”

The new approach, which will see just 10-15% of existing customers stay with the brand, comes with a far higher price point, expected to start at around £100,000—almost double that of their current average vehicle price. Rawdon explained: “This offers us the potential to scale up each vehicle. The sky’s the limit with bespoke offerings and personalisation.”

Jaguar Land Rover’s CEO, Adrian Mardell, affectionately described the company’s 800-strong design team as the "magic in the Midlands." The full extent of their creativity will be revealed on 2nd December 2024 during Miami Art Week, where Jaguar will debut its Design Vision Concept. This creation is expected to embody Jaguar’s Exuberant Modernism philosophy in its most striking form yet.

The question now is whether this daring reimagining will resonate with a new generation of Jaguar enthusiasts, many of whom may not even have heard of the brand before.