50 rebrands of 2009
With 2009 coming to an end it’s time to look back at 50 re-brands of the year gone by, as always there are the good… Opera web browser.
The bad… Xerox’s beach ball.
And the ugly… Whatever the hell this thing is from wacom.
For better or worse here are they are.
Air France.
The latest logo from Hewlett Packard, er, I mean the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Canadian province of Alberta.
Armor All.
Avid Technology.
The British Film Institute.
Xe, formerly Blackwater Security.
Capital One.
Cheer.
Chicken Now.
Chipotle, now I like Mexican food and logos.
Citroen.
Melbournes Connex train system.
Cooper Union.
Corbis.
Dia.
Dick Smith. Unfortunately in my experience the Techxperts seem to consist of 15 year olds who can’t understand what I’m talking about.
Discovery Kids.
Ditech.
NTT DoCoMo.
Duane Reade pharmacies.
Getronics.
The Game Show Network.
Hudson Bay Co.
Hertz rental services.
Kraft.
Microsoft Mouse.
My Little Pony, I was always more of a dinosaur figurine kind-of-guy myself, but this one of the my preferred re-brands to date.
Nickelodeon.
Packard Bell.
Pick n Pay.
Pips for hair.
Pitchfork.
Pyramid Breweries.
RKO Pictures.
Ruby Tuesdays.
The Society for Environmental Graphic Design.
Snapple.
Spanair.
Starz, another favorite. It would want to be for its 25 million dollar roll out.
Good Humour, or Streets as It’s know here in Australia. More on their re-brand here.
Sur La Table.
Taca.
Unimarc.
Valio.
The Vancouver Convention Centre.
And finally WGN America, I don’t know that the new logo does much for them, but anything beats the old monster.
What do you think?
Any favorites? Any pet hates?
I don’t like the Wacom very much, although I would like to see the line-art version. Although, I think the Citroen rebrand is fantastic. Just what it needed; to get rid of those horrible pointed edges!
Great post Andrew :)
Andrew´s last blog ..Logo Design for Woodlands Community Church
I think everyones pretty unanimous about the new Wacom logo, not a winner.
My favorite comment on it so far has been “My dog has a toy that looks just like this.”
It would be good to see a logo design process about the Wacom logo, and see why the choices were made to create something that looks like a robotic squid.
Andrew Kelsall´s last blog ..How to build a Home Office
The Wacom logo is so weird, what is it meant to be? I like the old Xerox logo so much better too, I don’t know why they picked the new ball.
Andrew,
I have a theory about Wolff Olins and their designs of late.
I think there so successful and bored now they are having bets with each other to see who can successfully pitch the worst logo to a major brand.
Picture them still sitting round the office with a few beers talking about the 2012 olympics logo saying “wow Steve, I can’t believe you sold that thing, I’m going to have to do something really crazy with this Wacom project.
Samm,
I can tell you the logo was released in sync with the companies new motto Open Up. Sense More. if that gives you any clues as to what it is. Or you might just be more confused now…
One logo change I quite like this year (well I do work for them) is Commerzbank. A very traditional German Bank who’s logo is black and yellow.
The front has changed and the yellow part of the logo is taken from Dresdner Bank who they took over this year. It’s not official until January but their website has the new logo in place.
Jimbob,
I google’d the old logo, I assume this is it? I’m with you, a change for the better in my opinion.
I also find it ironic that the old AJC logo reminds me of AWA (who do onsite repairs and support for Hewlett Packard in Australia) and the new logo looks like the HP one.
Ewan´s last blog ..Paranoid Personality Disorder
Thanks for these “head to head” comparisons. I find it interesting how so many are using gradients that really don’t add anything (in my opinion).
Ewan,
Except for a being lower case their old logo is much the same as the A.V. Club logo too. Maybe next time for something original.
Terry,
The RKO logo in particular could do without it for sure.
Interesting comparisons, but there is a danger in just focussing on the logo and judging the success of a re-brand on that alone. It means you ignore other ways in which a consumer interacts or experiences a brand, such as tone, behaviours or physical spaces.
Though a brand logo should act as the distillation of the brand’s core idea, it is just one component that can used to express it. The old saying of, “Don’t judge a book by its cover” for me rings true in this instance.
Ed
All valid points you raise there, I do believe though that the reason for that saying is many people do judge books by there cover, so to speak.
The initial point of contact is after all made by the visual identity alone, without any prior interactions or experiences, It’s certainly best in my opinion to get this portion of your brand correct.
Thanks for the interesting train of thought.
If you notice, a lot of these have gone from dull and sharp to shiny and round, I suppose it’s the new “Web 2.0″
Omar´s last blog ..Preparing a Video for FLV Playback
Omar,
There’s a few heading in that direction, you might also be interested in reading another of my posts comparing 50 Web 2.0 logo designs compared side by side with there traditional counterparts to see the really shiny stuff.
Opera could have just dropped the silly space-wasting shadow. Kraft lost it, the old one is better, just modernise it. Most improved with smaller footprint and more clarity. Ruby Tuesday and Snapple are good example of this.
But Packard Bell went wrong way. Beats me why Xerox went to a ball. However ‘nickelodean’ is the exception, that orange goop splat is so iconic and speaks to being a fun kids brand.
Mouse one is cute.
Loser of the year: Wacom.
Winner of the year: Valio.
It’s nice that the British Films Institute’s designer found a use for the “lens flare” effect.
Adam,
Maybe next year to completely removed the shadow from Opera.
Jackee,
The Wacom logo is a bizarre design, there’s no doubt.
Sonia,
From a static logo point of view I’m not a fan of the BFI design, I’d be interested to see it in motion though. I imagine this is where it shines, so to speak.