Peter Arnell as a Brand Innovator.

As a branding innovator and one of America’s most prolific branding masters, Peter Arnell offers insights into the creation of the iconic DKNY brand visual. DKNY, founded by Donna Karan in 1984, is a New York based fashion house. Most people today, if they were asked to visualize DKNY, would refer to the black and white image with the Statue of Liberty.

And this image is one that Peter Arnell created. As he explains, as they were contemplating what visual to create for DKNY, they discussed that “New York City is black and white. There is no color in New York City.”

Arnell shot the iconic picture himself. In the original picture, the Statue of Liberty is just a small image in the background. And as he said, “And I thought if you could bring it forward, that vertical power of that letter K was dying to invite in the Statue of Liberty. It was about so much. So, we decided that so much needed a place to live.”

He continued by explaining, “We never showed clothes. We never had models. We never said what it was like clothing company or where it was located. We just posed all the right curiosities to make people drive their imagination and their interest to check out what we’re doing.”

Thinking back on this image and design, which became synonymous with Donna Karen, Arnell said, “It achieved what it set out to achieve which is to give back to the city a celebration from what we were taking from the city.”