A B-Side BY Armin

UNFCCC

“In 1992, countries joined an international treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to cooperatively consider what they could do to limit average global temperature increases and the resulting climate change, and to cope with whatever impacts were, by then, inevitable.” From the press release: “The new logo presents a new image that highlights the central theme of the Convention and the institutional linkage to the United Nations.”

Thanks to Keenan Chadwick for the tip.

A B-Side BY Armin

Clean Energy Future

Clean Energy Future is an initiative by the Australian Government as “a long term plan to reshape our economy, cut carbon pollution, drive innovation, and help avoid the increased costs of delaying action on climate change.” A couple of detail images of the logo below (or after the jump).

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Opinion BY Christian Palino

Stalled Innovation

Current Senior Vice President, Digital Media at Discovery Channel, Randy Rieland is the inaugural editor of the recently launched Department of Innovation blog run by the Smithsonian Institution, “the world’s largest museum and research complex” that is administered and funded by the U.S. government. “The Department of Innovation is,” in Rieland’s words, “about people and ideas that likely will shape the way we will live one day.” One of the commenters on the Department of Innovation blog pointed out that in the logo, designed by Jamie Simon, “the gears can’t turn.” Stalled government has been mentioned in this context more than once recently.

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Opinion BY Armin

Follow-up: Government of Chile

In March we reported on the redesign of the Government of Chile identity, focusing on the return of the coat of arms. At the time, response to the logo was mostly negative due, in part, for its execution, but also because of its association to Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in the 1970s and 80s. Last month, the government introduced a more thorough redesigned identity designed by Chilean agency Hambre and a proprietary type family by Rodrigo Ramírez.

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Opinion BY Armin

Italicized Mail

This will be a fairly short introduction and light in informative design background because the little information there is about this is in Korean — but, as always, the universal language of identity design will get us through this together. Korea Post is the mail carrier of Korea in charge of all postal services and the financial services offered by the post offices. A new identity, exhaustively covered in this brand manual, is now being implemented.

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Opinion BY Armin

The Swedish Right Gets Stacked

To our Swedish readers this will be old news and the following brief introduction might fail to convey the political subtleties that this topic entails. In 2006 the four right-wing parties of Sweden — the Moderate Party, Centre Party, Liberal People’s Party, and Christian Democrats — formed the Allians för Sverige (Alliance for Sweden) as a way to stand stronger against the left-wing Social Democratic Party, which has led Swedish politics for the last 70 years. While each of the four allied parties is still running on their own, the Allians allows them so stand together on common issues. This past March, the Allians för Sverige changed its name to, simply, Alliansen (The Alliance) and introduced a new logo in preparation for the 2010 elections. The logo was designed by Stockholm-based Garbergs.

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Opinion BY Armin

God Save the Queen and Space

As most countries attempt to rebound from the last couple years worth of nasty economy, perhaps the last idea anyone had for a boost was to create a new space agency. Yesterday, Lord Mandelson, the UK’s Business Secretary, announced the creation of the UK Space Agency, “Exactly,” he said, “the kind of high value-added industry we need to support as we rebalance our economy, creating sustainable growth and the jobs of the future.” Complementing that sentiment was Lord Drayson, Minister for Science and Innovation, “We’re acting now, because this is a critical moment in the economic cycle — a point where existing markets are set to grow and new markets set to emerge. This is the time to go for growth.” The new agency will replace the 24-year-old British National Space Centre as the go-to body for all things space related. For such a high stakes, important venture, it sure has a funny logo.

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INTL. REVIEW BY Bruno Córdova POSTED BY Brand New

Horror Government (and Logo)

After the devastation caused by a 8.8 earthquake, 210 miles south from Santiago, an aftershock destroyed a cubed logo used during ten years of socialist Presidents (Ricardo Lagos, Michelle Bachelet). On March 9th, two days before Sebastián Piñera inauguration, his appointed-to-be speaker announced a new official logo for the incoming administration. Piñera, a conservative businessman, won a run-off in last january, becoming the first right-wing candidate to be democratically elected President in 52 years.

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Opinion BY Armin

The Missile Defense Agency Logo Conspiracy Theory

“It is the policy of the United States,” reads the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) web site, “to deploy as soon as is technologically possible an effective National Missile Defense system capable of defending the territory of the United States against limited ballistic missile attack (whether accidental, unauthorized, or deliberate).” That policy will be $1.2 billion short starting this year, as President Obama announced cost cuts last fall to a missile defense system plan that had been instated by the George Bush administration in 2002. Needless to say, with every Obama critic looking for any excuse to go on the offensive, this decision certainly had vociferous opposition — all perfectly acceptable as long as it’s within reason and rationalization. As opposed to, for example, the latest spewing of inanity that the new logo of the MDA is a sign that Obama and its administration are in cahoots with the Islamic populace and are giving Iran free reign to launch missiles willy nilly.

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Opinion BY Armin

European + Organic = Euro-Leaf

In April of last year, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development announced a competition — open only to design and art students from the 27 EU Member States — that “[Offers] a prize that money just can’t buy” according to the press release, “The winning logo will be introduced as the official logo for organic products throughout the European Union in July 2010.” In charge of filtering the first round of submissions was a panel of judges that included a combination of designers like Erik Spiekermann, Riitta Brusila-Räsänen, Szymon Skrzypczak, and Elisabeth Mercier, and non-designers from the organic industry like Urs Niggli and Tom Václavík, all of them overseen by Rob Vermeulen, former president of the Pan-European Brand Design Association. And the whole thing came with all the typical fine print of a design contest that tends to ruffle so many feathers. Nonetheless, 3,422 entries were submitted — you can see various of them here.

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