As 2010 draws to an end, here is a look back at 60 refreshed and redesigned logos and brand identity designs from the year gone by. For better or worse here they are, and as always there’s…

The good… The Black Star Co-Op Pub and Brewery.

The bad… MTV.

And the ugly… Yellow Pages.

Aecom.

Ageas, formerly Fortis Insurances.

Argos.

Astral Media.

Brand Australia.

The Bank of Taipei.

Bausch & Lomb.

Brock University.

Caribou Coffee.

The Government of Chile.

Cielo. Formerly VisaNet, Brasil.

Coates Hire.

Cousins Subs.

Dodge.

Esurance.

Expedia.

The short-lived Gap logo. In the space of just 6 days Gap announced it’s new brand identity, launched a design contest to redesign it, cancelled said content, and finally reverted to their original logo design. Time well spent…

Girl Scouts of the United States of America.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

Google. Still a little drop shadow there, perhaps next year they’ll remove it completely. Fingers crossed.

Griffin Technology.

Hebrew National.

Hodges Real Estate.

Brand Hong Kong.

Interclick.

The Lending Club.

The Library of Congress.

Mapquest.

I believe this is for the Spalding Groups online store, McCainStore, not an updated campaign logo for Senator John McCain himself. The site was unfortunately down at the time of writing.

The controversial Missile Defence Agency logo design. Conspiracy or coincidence, what do you think?

Another brand gone full circle. The new MOCA logo is in fact their original design from the 1980′s.

Molson Canadian.

Mount Royal University, Canada.

Microsoft’s software suite, Office.

Brazilian cable provider, Net.

Norwegian telecommunications provider Netcom.

Organic Farming, on behalf of the European Commission for Agriculture and Rural Development.

Premier Global Services, now known as… ebi? e6i? p6i? Oh, it’s PGi. Apparently legibility wasn’t high on the list of criteria for their new logo.

Radiotelevisione Italian.

Rare.

The City of Regina.

Rhapsody.

Roosevelt University, Illinois.

The online repository, Scribd.

Seattles Best Coffee.

Skittles.

Sorbonne Nouvelle, University of Paris.

Technicolor.

The popular Linux distribution, Ubuntu. On a related note, I’ve been experimenting with Ubuntu for a while now and if you’re looking to make the switch from Windows, Ubuntu comes highly recommended. It’s effortless to install and fairly painless when it comes to learning the UI ( in my experience ).

One caveat for fellow designers however, while all the Windows programs I’ve attempted to run on Ubuntu work, the Adobe Creative Suite definitely does not, and there are apparently no plans to resolve this in the foreseeable future. Consider this my petition to Adobe to get busy on the issue.

The UK Space Agency.

The State University of New York.

The University of Waterloo.

Water for People.

Wikipedia.

Workopolis.

After a little fine tuning of their logo a few years back, Comcast have rebranded completed at Xfinity.

Yodel, formerly the Home Delivery Network.

What do you think?

A few good and bad as always. Black Start is definitely my favourite, while the Yellow Page pebble just leaves me confused. How about you?

P.S. You can also check out rebrands of 2009, and designs from 2008.

60 brand identity redesigns of 2010

Having lived in Sydney for 27 of my 30 years, I often find myself comparing it to my now home town of Melbourne. While there are pros and cons for each, Sydney’s new brand identity is a decided runner up.

Image credit.

One theory is that the design is inspired by Sydney’s annual New Years Eve fireworks display. As iconic as the display might be, it’s only on one night a year for around half an hour, obviously it would be silly to brand a city on this single event.

Sydney is an extremely diverse city, in both its surroundings and nationalities of its people, and while I’m sure the design is intended to convey this diversity, I’m just not feeling it.

The monochrome version simply falls flat on its face. While the Melbourne logo design looses a bit of it’s oomph in mono, it’s still obviously reminiscent of Federation Square, the cities cultural and entertainment centre. Sydney’s on the other hand conveys nothing.

I hate to sound like I’m just sticking it to the city that I left behind, because that isn’t the case at all. But having lived there for 27 years you would hope that something, anything, about this logo would speak to me. It doesn’t.

What do you think?

Any Sydney-siders out there who are getting this?

Sydney vs Melbourne – New brand identities

It’s been a few months now since AOL launched their new brand identity. Gone are the old typeface and web 2.0 arrow, while the new “dynamic backgrounds” can be seen far and wide.

That’s all the designs I’ve seen in practice, judging by the Aol Artists Gallery though it looks like there’s still more on the way.

Here’s more you’ll probably see soon, if you haven’t already.

What do you think?

I can appreciate the idea behind it, but after giving it a few months it’s really not for me. Has the new design grown on you?

AOL’s new brand identity, 60 logo designs and counting

If you’ve ever had a drink in your life you’ll no doubt recognize the iconic bottle design of Absolut Vodka. It stands to reason their are plenty of equal, if not better products when browsing the shelves of your local bottle shop, yet even without a label or packaging design, Absolut stands out from the crowd.

With more label designs that you can poke a stick at, each as different as the next, one might think there would be little unity across the brand. Even with no label at all, they are unmistakable.

What do you think?

I don’t drink vodka, it’s a blank bottle, yet for some reason I want to buy it…

Is great branding better than a great product?

Every so often a major brand causes a stir within the design community. A new logo design is seeming disliked by all, but despite crushing reviews and predictions of doom, these brands have the power to turn anything into a ubiquitous symbol in time.

It’s easy to look at the before and after of a logo design and not like it, but what about after its had a year or two, and a few million dollars, of brand exposure and advertising behind it?

Most notorious in my mind from the last year or two is Pepsi, Wacom and the 2012 London Olympics. Now that they’ve had some time to sink in, has your opinion changed?

Pepsi change their branding so often it’s hard to remember exactly what the last image was. I still don’t know what the Wacom thing is supposed to be, and the less said about the Olympics logo the better.

Have they grown on you?

For me, obviously not. How about you?

Does unpopular branding grow on you?

There are a whole lot of colours out there, around 3000 solids if you believe the folks over at Pantone. But what do colours mean and which ones are best for your brand identity?

Without going into every possible hue, here is a basic guide on thoughts, feelings and emotions associated with colours.

Violet combines the stability and power of red. It is used to symbolize royalty, luxury, elegance, romance, mystery and magic. Violet is however rarely found in nature compared to the other colours, and can appear artificial at times.

Blue. Stability, loyalty, trust and tranquillity. Interestingly, around 70% of children aged 5 – 15 prefer colours in the violet to blue range over any other, something to keep in mind if your marketing to children.

Green stands for nature, health, wealth, safety and growth. On a less positive note the wrong shade of green can also imply sickness or jealousy.

Yellow. Happiness, light, curiosity, light heartedness and fun. Yellow can be disappear into white however is the first colour seen against black, giving it the potential for great impact, or very little.

Orange is associated with energy, warmth, endurance, enthusiasm and stimulation ( not the sexy kind, we’ll get to that in a minute… ). Orange yields almost the same power as yellow but without the vanishing act when used against white.

Finally red. The meanings of red vary from love, passion, sex ( told you we’d get there ), courage and strength to war, fire, blood, rage and death. A diverse and powerful colour.

Which colour is right for your brand?

Did you make the right choice for your brand? or is a change in order. Image credit.

What colours suit your brand identity design?

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 favourite. 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 favourites? Any pet hates?

P.S. You can also check out rebrands from 2008, here.

50 rebrands of 2009

After announcing the change back in April this year, energy and oil provider Statoil have yesterday adopted their new brand identity. The new identity has been received with mixed results. While many give the brand credit for it’s boldness, the final execution has received a bit of criticism.

In ticking off the 5 key features of a good logo design, Statoil’s mark is describable, memorable, effective in black and scalable. But is it appropriate? Many seem to think no.

It’s definitely not the typical image that comes to mind when thinking about oil and energy, but that’s the point. After reading Statoils objectives for the design I think the Scandinavian Design Group has done well.

The press release on the design is available here, along with a 10 second advertisement that will advertise the brand. Some key quotes taken from the press release are;

Our new logo, the star, is inspired by the starry skies of the north. It symbolizes our highest aspirations: continued focus on the Norwegian continental shelf, international growth, and active and targeted work to develop effective new energy solutions…

Along the way we carried out thorough research among the world’s 100 largest energy companies. We found most to be quite conservative in their descriptive symbols and communications. We wanted to differentiate ourselves by making a courageous decision. It’s important that we stand out in an international arena and stay faithful to our desire to lead the way…

By choosing the magenta-coloured star as our new symbol, we make explicit our origins and our desire to cross new frontiers on our journey forward. We’re also making a clear statement that the world can still look towards the north to discover future energy solutions…

Along with the included corporate collateral, and images reception areas, building signage, work uniforms and more.

What do you think?

I don’t think anyone would disagree it’s an improvement over the old mark, but I think the new mark stands proud in it’s own right.

Statoil brand identity design and logo design

For a long time the gift market Screaming Rhino has been my favourite brand name. They don’t have a webpage that I can find, and I have no idea what the inspiration behind the name was. It just paints a Roger Rabbit style cartoon rhino in my mind running around hysterically.

I recently found this contender… Duck Fart, perfume eau de cologne ( logo pictured above ).

Clearly aimed at customers with a sense of humour, I use cologne so little that I’ve had the same bottle of Hugo Boss for about 12 years, but I think I’d have to buy this just to see what its like.

Seriously though… choosing a brand name isn’t easy, below are half a dozen mnemonic devices for creating a memorable brand name.

Rhymes
Like a song you can’t get out of your head, rhymes work in much the same way. e.g. Curly Wurly, Mellow Yellow and Lean Cuisine.

Provoking imagery
Our brains love imagery, names which evoke clear images are particularly memorable. e.g. Apple, Blackberry and Fox.

Alliteration
Alliteration is a quite common mnemonic device where each word of the brand name begins with the same sound but does not rhyme. e.g. Coca Cola and Krispy Kreme.

Neologisms
A neologism is a new word created by respelling a existing word(s). Accent on the Future = Accenture, The mathematical term googol = Google, Professionalism + proactivity = Protiviti, and so on.

Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia’s are words that sound like what they stand for. e.g. Bang, clap, crack and snap.

Haplology
Finally Haplology, which requires 3 word brand names and abbreviates the middle word. e.g. Toys ‘R’ Us, Buy ‘N’ Large and Gas ‘N’ Gulp.

So which are your going to use?

Rhyming seems pretty straight forward, perhaps I should have branded myself as Andy Pandy… no, perhaps not.

Choosing a memorable brand name

While any good logo design must work in black only, many brands use colour extremely effectively to uniquely identify their brand.

While you might not think simply using, in these cases, yellow, blue, pink or orange would make one brand any more memorable than the next, I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who didn’t recognize the brands from these Comex advertisements.

Do any other brands come to mind?

I’m thinking Coca-Cola red, Cadbury purple, Twitter blue…

Branding with colour

My partner and I have been looking to move to Melbourne for some time now and so I was particularly interested to see my future Cities new image.

The logo was developed by the Australian branch of Landor Associates for just shy of $200,000 and according to CEO Dr Kathy Alexander has the following objectives:

• Consolidation of multiple logos into a single, strong, cutting-edge design
• Better identification of services City of Melbourne is delivering
• Greater brand impact and flexibility
• More cost and time-effective in-house design and brand management

Below are a dozen alternate colour schemes, as well as the final mark which is said to represent the cultural and artistic nature of Melbourne.

The design appears heavily inspired by Melbourne’s Federation Square and while I like the full colour render, I think the message is somewhat lost on the black-only version. Besides that, It’s a great improvement over the old logo.

The “leaf” logo has been in use now for 15 years and was found to be outdated, weak when compared to other national and international city brands and with a score of additional logos leads a somewhat fragmented image.

As a result, Melbourne’s annual design costs are said to be nearly $100,000 and their new unified brand images is set to negate this. Last but not least, is some printed collateral to accompany their new brand image.

What do you think?

As with any large re-brand their is going to be a lot of love / hate going around, but at the least it’s a big improvement in my book.

The new look of Melbourne City

Namics is a web design, development & IT company based in Germany. After seeing their new logo design, a near paragraph of text set in Arial, I was unimpressed to say the least. As I read on however, their brand identity took an interest twist.

Created by design firm Heads, Namics’ new branding is “real time corporate identity”, an ever changing mark ranging from a single word to billboard size bodies of copy.

What do you think?

At a glance the logo design alone might seem very dull, overall though I think the execution and especially the idea behind the branding are excellent.

Dynamic branding

I knew Virgin had a quite a variety of sub brands but was surprised when reading this article on VIBE to find Richard Branson’s empire is made up of more than 200 companies. Books, radio, wine, coffee, gambling, health services, basically anything you can think of.

The extensiveness of the Virgin brand is reflected in the visual styles of the individual brands and sub-brands. In isolation, these brand identities might do their work but the problem gets visible when they are placed side by side as shown here.

Apart from the (mostly) red colour and the very recognisable Virgin script typeface, many of the visual identities of the Virgin sub-brands look like they have been made overnight by the manager of the brand himself, without having to follow many rules or guidelines.

What do you think?

Besides the Virgin logotype there’s little to no unity between sub-brands. Most look pretty slapped together, like no real effort was put into them. Do they work for you?

The 200 brands of Virgin

Well it’s that time again, Pepsi seem set to roll out yet another re-brand in response to the economic slowdown continuing “to pressure the North American liquid refreshment beverage category.”

I think that means fizzy drinks… and of course the re-brand has nothing to do with trying to top Coca-Cola’s latest efforts…

Above is Pepsi’s latest image. Personally i think it looks like a range of motor oil and I don’t appear to be alone in my dislike of it. After reading the comments at Creative Review and Brand New, it seems the general consensus is a big thumbs down.

Personally i might have stopped here. With their clean, distinct look, these cans served Pepsi well in the past. You would be hard pressed to find someone who didn’t recognize them. When comparing the current/new packaging to these, I think they leave a lot to be desired.

What are your thoughts ?

Love it or hate it ? 1.2 billion dollars spent on this rebrand, I wonder how much the next one will cost.

Pepsi’s latest brand identity, 11 and counting

A&E.

Atlanta Bread.

Barclay Card.

Bell.

Best Buy.

Bank of New Zealand.

Cafepress.

cnet.

Correos De Mexico.

DirectTV.

Dolby.

Ducati.

Econolodge.

Emerge.

Essar.

Euronews.

Fido.

First Data.

Good Housekeeping.

Hewlett Packard.

Hunter.

myLifetime.

Mapquest.

Memorex.

Metallica.

Mexicana.

Michaels.

Mindshare.

The Museum of London.

Fords Mustang.

Philips, it’s changed honestly, you just need to look real close.

The Philadelphia Orchestra.

Popeyes.

Norway Post. More on this logo design here.

Quickchek.

Rede Globo.

rtve.

The Seattle children’s hospital.

Stop & Shop.

Sunkist.

Super 8 Motels.

Sysco.

The Athletes Foot.

Tasti D Lite.

The United Football League.

Walmart.

WGN America.

Woolworths / Safeway.

Yellowbook.

What do you think?

I don’t know about you, but I’m still reeling at the WGN America “logo”.

50 rebrands of 2008