State Street Brand Guidelines: Union Bank of 1792, the SPDR & Fearless Girl

A Boston charter signed by John Hancock.

State Street traces its roots to Union Bank, which, English Wikipedia says, received its charter in 1792 from the Massachusetts governor John Hancock. It was the third bank chartered in Boston, and its office stood at the corner of State and Exchange Streets. The company today speaks of “more than two centuries of experience,” and its website counted 232 years in 2024.

The name came from the street. Wikipedia says State Street was known in the 18th century as the “Great Street to the Sea,” as Boston grew into a flourishing maritime capital. Union Bank took a national charter in 1865 and became the National Union Bank of Boston. Separately, State Street Deposit & Trust opened in July 1891, and its name was shortened to State Street Trust Company in 1897.

The two lines joined in October 1925. Wikipedia explains that the merged bank took the State Street name but operated under National Union’s charter, which is how the present company claims its place among the oldest banks in the United States. Before that merger, in 1924, State Street had become custodian of the Massachusetts Investors Trust, which Wikipedia describes as the first mutual fund in the United States.

From commercial bank to custodian and fund sponsor.

For most of the 20th century State Street was a Boston commercial bank. It merged with Second National Bank in 1955 and with Rockland-Atlas National Bank in 1961, and in 1966, Wikipedia says, it completed the State Street Bank Building, the first high-rise office tower in downtown Boston. In 1972 it opened its first international office, in Munich.

The shift came under William Edgerly, who became president and chief executive in 1975 and, according to Wikipedia, moved the strategy from commercial banking towards investments and securities processing. By 1992 most of the bank’s revenue came from fees for holding securities, settling trades and keeping records. In 1999 State Street sold its retail and commercial banking businesses to Citizens Financial Group.

Its asset-management arm took the name State Street Global Advisors. Wikipedia says the business was formed in 1994, while the firm itself gives 1978 as its founding year, as portfolio institutional reported in June 2025.

In January 1993 State Street launched the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, ticker SPY. English Wikipedia calls it the first exchange-traded fund listed in the United States, and the SPDR name has since become a family of funds of its own. Larger acquisitions followed in custody and software: Investors Bank & Trust in 2007 and, on 1 October 2018, Charles River Development, a maker of investment-management software in Burlington, Massachusetts, Wikipedia says.

The financial crisis touched the bank as well. In October 2008, Wikipedia says, the United States Treasury invested in State Street under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and in July 2009 the company became the first major financial firm to repay the Treasury. In November 2011 it was named one of the world’s 29 systemically important banks. In January 2017, Wikipedia records, State Street agreed to pay to resolve US investigations into commissions charged to six clients.

How asset managers present themselves.

Asset managers sell something that cannot be photographed: a promise about money over decades. Their visual language tends to borrow calm from elsewhere. Campaigns favour quiet photography of savers, families and retirees, while corporate pages lean on skyline offices, glass lobbies and the street names of financial districts. The tone is reassurance rather than excitement.

Much of the real design work sits in documents. Fund factsheets, prospectuses and annual reports follow tight templates in which a fund name, a ticker and a chart must sit in the same place on every page, across dozens of languages and jurisdictions. Exchange-traded funds have added their own graphic shorthand: three- and four-letter tickers that work almost as logos, and fund-family names such as SPDR, launched by State Street in 1993, and iShares, which BlackRock acquired with Barclays Global Investors in 2009.

The larger firms also publish a steady stream of thought leadership. Stewardship reports explain how they vote shares on behalf of clients, sustainability reports set out policies, and annual letters from chief executives and market-outlook publications are written to be quoted by the financial press. These pieces are designed as editorial products, with covers, charts and data graphics, and they carry much of a firm’s identity.

Visibility beyond the financial pages usually comes through sponsorship of sports and the arts, and occasionally through public stunts: State Street’s Fearless Girl statue, installed facing Wall Street’s Charging Bull in March 2017, began as a promotion for an index fund. This guide sets out what can be checked about each firm — its founding, its owners and its deals — and keeps colours and typefaces to an unofficial interpretation.

A statue, a new name and a custody deal.

One State Street promotion took the form of a sculpture. Fearless Girl, a bronze by Kristen Visbal of a girl about four feet high, was commissioned by State Street Global Advisors to promote an index fund of companies with a relatively high share of women in senior leadership, English Wikipedia says. It was installed on 7 March 2017 at the northern tip of Bowling Green, facing the Charging Bull, on the eve of International Women’s Day. After complaints from the sculptor of Charging Bull, it was removed in November 2018 and moved the following month to Broad Street, opposite the New York Stock Exchange.

In June 2025 the asset-management arm changed its name. portfolio institutional reported on 30 June 2025 that State Street Global Advisors had become State Street Investment Management; the firm said it had researched the new brand identity with clients and investors around the world and tied it to a “One State Street” approach across the group. Its chief executive, Yie-Hsin Hung, said the new brand “underscores our mission of investing in our clients as they invest in the markets.”

The custody business kept growing too. In February 2025, Wikipedia says, State Street agreed to take over Mizuho Financial Group’s global custody business outside Japan; finews.asia reported on 2 October 2025 that the transfer had been completed. The group remains headquartered in Boston; its website, in 2024 figures, counted about 53,000 employees and business in more than 100 markets.

For a design guide, State Street shows a brand carried by a street name, a 1792 date and a few strong product names, from SPDR to Fearless Girl. Compare BlackRock, its fellow giant of index funds, and Fidelity, which English Wikipedia names with both firms among the largest index fund managers. For this guide we use harbour navy, granite and a muted brass with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep State Street’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.