People for Water for People

Working continually in eleven countries — Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, and India — and providing support to more than forty countries throughout its nearly twenty years in operation, Water for People “helps people in developing countries improve quality of life by supporting the development of locally sustainable drinking water resources, sanitation facilities, and hygiene education programs.” A big part of the Denver-based organization’s focus is not just establishing new facilities or resources, but making sure they keep working and are self-sufficient years later. This past March, Water for People introduced a new logo designed by Duffy & Partners.

Continue reading this entry

A Live Webcast of the Brand New Conference?

Here is another hypothetical question regarding the Brand New Conference — which, by the way, is becoming less hypothetical and we even have a date and venue to share next week. Since many people expressed interest in attending via a live webcast, this is something we are seriously considering and would like to get a sense of how many people would take part; this helps to both price it accordingly as well as budget it, since having 1,000 people attend makes a big difference over 500 people attending.

Continue reading this entry

A Fierce Blue Camel

Let’s be perfectly honest here. The only reason we are talking about this is because it involves camels. Specifically the “before” camel. Look at it and tell me you don’t want to learn more? Why is it so complacent? Who is it waiting for in such relaxed repose? Is it smiling at me? Can I take it home and feed it blue food? Okay, maybe I’m getting carried away and we should just state some facts. The adorable camel is the ex-mascot of the Connecticut College Camels, the 28-team athletics department of this small liberal arts college in New London, Connecticut, with a petite student body of 1,900. The Camels compete in the NCAA Division III but are also part of the exclusive New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), a fact worth pointing out as it is a conference that features athletic departments with a chicken, a cow, a donkey and a polar bear as their mascots — needless to say, they are not the fiercest teams in U.S. college sports. Earlier this month, the Camels unveiled a new camel, created by sports-branding-machine Rickabaugh Graphics. (Sadly, their web site has been the same since 2006).

Continue reading this entry

Crystal Ball Says What?

Around the world, the adage applies that all roads lead to Rome, but in the state of New York, all roads lead to a SUNY (State University of New York) campus. With over 460,000 enrolled students across 64 campuses, SUNY is the biggest conglomerate of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States, if not the world. Keeping the organization unified and focused must be a massive effort and sometimes it requires bold and far-reaching initiatives to keep things moving, so this month SUNY presented “The Power of SUNY,” a strategic plan for 2010 and beyond that establishes the scope of what SUNY wants to achieve. Along with it, came a new logo.

Continue reading this entry

Play that Funky Music Y Boy

At the turn of the century, the internet held the promise of content “streaming,” a splashing waterfall of always-on music and video, but bandwidths weren’t then what they are now, and the whole experience of streaming anything was slow and painful. One of the frontrunners though was Rhapsody in 2001, owned by Listen.com at the time, which provided over 30,000 legally-owned tracks. Two years later, Rhapsody was acquired by RealNetworks, where Rhapsody’s catalog and subscribers continued to grow. This month, with close to 10 million tracks, Rhapsody became an independent company and to break free from the RealNetworks branding, created a new logo.

Continue reading this entry

Introducing: Brand New Classroom

Please direct your browser to the newest member of the UnderConsideration family: Brand New Classroom. Nothing else to read here. Hope you enjoy. Tell your friends!

GLAAD Gets Louder

While still light years away from fair portrayal in the media as well as full social and cultural acceptance, the gay, lesbian and transgender community have had a strong ally the last 25 years that has positively broadened the views of the public in The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). Established in New York in 1985, GLAAD “amplifies the voice of the LGBT community by empowering real people to share their stories, holding the media accountable for the words and images they present, and helping grassroots organizations communicate effectively.” Working from that key word, amplifying, Lippincott worked pro-bono to create their new identity, which was introduced this past March 13 at the 21st Annual GLAAD Media Awards in New York.

Continue reading this entry

CS5-mania

In case you somehow missed the announcement, this week saw the launch of the much awaited (not really, I think) Adobe CS5. Following the pattern where two versions are visually alike (CS1 and CS2, CS3 and CS4) CS5 comes with a brand new coat of fancy paint, meant very much to signify that this is a whole new version you must get right now. While CS1 and CS2 were well-known for their Meta Design-designed packaging and CS3 and CS4 became well know for the implacably strict icon set, CS5 looks like it’s making a push for coolest launch screen version. Designed in-house the new CS5 iconography is highly polished and well developed, while the packaging, designed by Tolleson Design, isn’t too shabby either. Our fellow brand-fiends at idsgn have put together a comprehensive overview of the whole CS5 branding.

Pebble as Metaphor for Directory

The last time I looked through a Yellow Pages directory was probably 10 years ago and I believe I am not exaggerating. During those years I may have used their online version, but it was a rather obnoxious experience. These days, when anything is so simply findable through Google, the moment the Yellow Pages directory gets placed on our doorstep it goes straight into the recycling bin. I am not naive enough to think that nobody uses Yellow Pages anymore, but I’m surprised it has survived over other newspapers and magazines who haven’t been so lucky and I’m even more surprised that Yellow Pages keeps pushing online, where it faces stiff competition. Canada’s Yellow Pages — producing directories since 1908 and now a 2,300-employee operation — is embracing this shift head-on and has redesigned its identity to reflect its focus on both printed and online directories.

Continue reading this entry

Snake Lettering

If there is a reason to run your own blog is so that you can break your own rules when you please. For the most part, we cover big, national and global organizations or, at the very least, regional ones here on Brand New — the only way for a relatively unknown, small organization to get on here is, as stated in our selection criteria, to be “a very compelling design story.” Snakes make for very compelling design stories. Heading south from downtown Austin, Texas into the über-cool area of South Congress, the very first shop that you see is Luther’s. Barely a year old, Luther’s is an apparel and accessories shop for bad-ass (or wannabe bad-asses) men and women, carrying hardcore jeans, boots, shirts, fedoras and a range of products like hair pomade that are, literally, impossible to find anywhere else in Texas. And the decor, set against exposed brick, is all Texas Rock ‘n’ Roll. This past Friday, the fine folks at House Industries passed through our little town to open an exhibit they set up at Luther’s and they took the opportunity to give the store a little more attitude with a revised logo.

Continue reading this entry