Opinion BY Armin

Esurance gets Dorky Techie Feely

Only slightly older than ten years old, founded in 1998, San Francisco-based Esurance is one of the leading direct-to-consumer auto insurance companies in the U.S. and one of the better known providers of such unappealing service. Until now, Esurance had been represented by a very generic sunset logo and personalized in the form of Erin Esurance, an animated, pink-haired superhero. Earlier this month, Esurance went through a complete transformation with a new identity and national campaign titled “Techie Feely,” both created by San Francisco-based Duncan/Channon.

Continue reading this entry

Opinion BY Armin

Lumberjack Soccer

While the whole world has soccer in their brains I figured the timing might be right to feature a diminutive component that helps fuel this worldwide craze. From the deep, damp and cold confines of the United States’ northwest, the Portland Timbers have had a soccer team since 1975 when it competed in the North American Soccer League and most recently played in the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) Division 2 league, or, more bluntly, the minor league to the Major Soccer League (MSL) where the Timbers will be graduating to in the upcoming 2011 season, becoming the 18th team. In preparation for the move, the Timbers unveiled a new identity designed by Rare Design, a firm in Hattiesburg, Mississippi with plenty of athletic identity experience.

Continue reading this entry

INTL. REVIEW BY CLINTON DUNCAN POSTED BY Brand New

All Radiation, No Heart

Sydney is a city of 4.5 million people in Australia, it has a beautiful harbour in the middle, mountains to the west and dozens of beautiful beaches on its eastern coast. Unfortunately a common critique of the city is that these beautiful surroundings mean it spends too much time on leisurely pursuits at the expense of deep thinking, artistic or cultural tendencies. Indeed, leveraging the attractive scenery can only get you so far, and just like the Federal Government’s recent effort at creating Brand Australia, there is now a shiny new “Brand Sydney” to help communicate all that is good and great about this fair city for tourism, investment and major events.

Continue reading this entry

INTL. REVIEW BY Mark Holtmann POSTED BY Brand New

Dawn of the Doodle

As the financial crisis rages over the world, its consequences are becoming evident in identities too. One of them is the disappearance of the iconic Fortis bank logo from the streets of the Benelux (the economic union of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg), with its final name carrier Fortis Insurances being rebranded as Ageas. Created from Dutch and Belgian financial institutions in the 1990s, Fortis at some point ranked number 20 on the Fortune 500 list. After a string of unfortunate events Fortis found itself effectively collapsing and its parts were sold. This past April, the remaining stand-alone insurance activities renamed itself Ageas — derived “from the Latin word ‘agere,’ meaning action, drive, and a conviction to forge ahead,” according to this lengthy name explanation. Still being a considerable business, Ageas now employs 11,000 people with an annual inflow of around EUR 16 billion.

Continue reading this entry

Opinion BY Sam Becker

Mergers & Executions

BusinessWeek, a weekly periodical catering to the business community (go figure), was recently acquired by Bloomberg Media from their previous owner, McGraw-Hill. Financial pundits saw this as a quick route for Bloomberg, the successful, finance-oriented media outlet started by the mayor of New York, to a strong presence in print. More to the point, it was viewed as an opportunity to make Bloomberg, the unseen hand behind so many news feeds and stock tickers, more of a household name. And so it came to be. Their name now graces the living rooms and reception areas of millions of homes and businesses across the world, announcing its debut by turning a new page in BusinessWeek’s 80-year history.

Continue reading this entry

Opinion BY Armin

The Ultimate in Swoosh Possibilities

For some reason, the frisbee seems to be the throwing object that is most adaptable to any number of other sports, most notable Golf Frisbee (combining, well, frisbee with golf) and Ultimate Frisbee (combining frisbee with American) football. For the record though, neither spin-off sport can actually use the word Frisbee, as it is a brand name and registered trademark of Wham-o Inc., think Kleenex vis a vis facial tissues, so instead they have to use the word Disc or Flying Disc. But I digress before the gressing gets too out of hand. The subject at hand concerns the newly named USA Ultimate, formerly known as the Ultimate Players Association, originally established in 1979. USA Ultimate acts as “the National Governing Body for the Sport of Ultimate.” The sport of Ultimate if you are not familiar, involves teams of seven, who score by passing the disc from one end zone to another, much like football, but when the a player has the disc he or she can only pivot before throwing it. It sounds like something you do after a few beers, but it’s actually a sport taken very seriously. Just check any of the videos here to get a sense.

Continue reading this entry

Opinion BY Christian Palino

Roosevelt University Turns a Corner

Roosevelt University is a university based in Chicago and Schaumburg, Illinois that has grown to offer 126 degree programs since its creation in 1945. The university gave itself a major visual brand overhaul this year as they hired Chicago-based design studio Studio Blue to create a new primary logo system, university seal and sports logo and released them in parallel with the launch of their new website, designed by mStoner.

Continue reading this entry

INTL. REVIEW BY Simon Wennberg POSTED BY Brand New

Who Let the Butterflies Out?

European broadcasters tend to place much focus on the brand of their respective parent corporation, which usually acts as an umbrella brand for all their outlets. This is very different from the American broadcasters where every network seems to be its own operation with loose branding ties within corporations (think MTV, VH1, etc. within Viacom). One weird aspect of the European model is that every once in a while the corporation makes a change in its identity which is then implemented on all its services. This means a sudden burst of rebrands of several television channels that either happen at once or over the course of a limited time-period. One recent example of this is Rai — short for Radiotelevisione Italiana, a state-owned public service broadcaster controlled by the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance — which suddenly decided to give all its 13 channels new looks on May 18.

Continue reading this entry

Opinion BY Armin

Twinkle, Twinkle Black Star

Opening later this Summer just a couple miles north of UnderConsideration headquarters is the Black Star Co-Op Pub and Brewery, providing a fresh take on the co-op model. And by fresh I mean it involves beer and a place to eat some pub grub along with it or, as founder Steven Yarak, says “Why shouldn’t you own the pub you drink at?!”. Black Star’s member-owners also have a say in what the beers taste like, participating in tastings with Black Star’s own brewer, Jeff Young, who will be creating beers under three categories: Rational, Irrational, and Infinite. In preparation for their opening, Black Star has a new identity designed by Austin-based Ptarmak.

Continue reading this entry

Opinion BY Armin

Normal is the New Rare

Judging from the amount of e-mails we received about this redesign, it seems we have a healthy community of gamers among Brand New readers and, as a former gamer myself, I am happy to oblige. Even more so when it comes to a game developer that enabled many hours of personal enjoyment with games like the addictive Marble Madness or one of the earlier basketball games, Jordan vs. Bird: One-on-One. Rare is a British company that has been a big part of the development of the gaming industry since the late 1970s, when it produced 8-bit games and has since developed games for all the major consoles. Rare was bought by Microsoft in 2002. Yesterday, as part of their 25th anniversary, Rare announced a new look.

Continue reading this entry