Opinion BY Armin

Concentric Philanthropy

Established in 1999 by a group of power players, chief among them actor Paul Newman, the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP) brings together senior executives from the world’s leading companies to steer them towards meaningful, high-quality philanthropy. To date, CECP includes “more than 180 CEO members, representing 150 major corporations and over $10 billion in annual corporate giving.” This list alone, of CEO members, is probably worth more in pixels than what’s in your bank account right now. CECP recently introduced a new identity designed by Futurebrand.

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Opinion BY Armin

Follow-up: Telemundo

Way back in May of last year we reported on the new logo for Hispanic channel Telemundo, a division of NBCUniversal. Designed by New York, NY-based loyalkaspar the logo received middling reviews, mostly being “fine”. This January, Telemundo finally made an official introduction of the logo and new branding and on-air package — the latter designed by London-based DixonBaxi — with a splashy takeover of Times Square. (See photos of that here, on the sidebar.)

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In Brief BY Armin

Logo Reductions for Screen Use

Today we have a little diversion but one that I think has a lot of potential to demonstrate the need for logos to have a secondary (more like alternate) version for use in smaller screens and applications. Students at Oded Ezer’s Typography for Interaction Design class at H.I.T (Holon Institute of Technology), Visual Communication Dep., in Israel have been given the following brief: “Re-design a screen compatible version for a known print-based logo.(as App launcher icon, logo for splash screen, favicon, etc.) Define and keep in mind the core values of the brand, and the technical requirements for the adjustment to screen.” It’s important to understand that this is NOT a redesign exercise but a translation of logos to maintain their essence and perform better at small sizes with less elements and fuzziness. Also remember this is student work, not final deliverables for a client so constructive feedback is encouraged. Biggest polling system on Brand New available at the bottom.

(See also: Oded’s class’ efforts on translating Latin alphabet logos to Hebrew and Arabic).

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Opinion BY Armin

Oklahoma Gets its Contemporary On

Established in 1989 in Oklahoma City, OK, as City Arts Center, the recently renamed Oklahoma Contemporary is a nonprofit organization that offers progressive and innovative art exhibits and “encourages artistic expression in all its forms through education and exhibitions.” Last week the organization announced its name change and introduced the new identity designed by Saffron.

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Announcement BY Armin

2012 Brand New Awards: 7 Days Left to Enter

The deadline for the 2012 Brand New Awards is coming right up. Next Friday, March 1, 2013. Get on it folks! With the option to enter everything online you don’t have to worry about shipping anything to get it here on Friday.

Friday Likes BY Armin

Friday Likes 35

Simplicity is the theme of today’s likes.

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Announcement BY Armin

Brand New: The Build

I normally hold designs very close to my vest. I do not like people looking at what I’m doing while it’s in progress. So what I am about to do goes against fifteen years of habit. As I have hinted in the past, Brand New will undergo a major redesign. The design itself is loosely set and I’ve started building it out. Normally I would just spring the redesign on everyone but, just like you can see a building being constructed from foundation to beams to piping to glass windows, I will be building Brand New in a semi-live way, posting updates online as I reach different milestones. I’m not sure what this achieves other than opening myself up for feedback early on and perhaps giving code-inspectors a chance to see what I’m doing right or wrong.

So: This is where I’m at, warts and all, on the home page. The site is built on a flexible grid and will eventually be responsive (right now, I’m working on the version for people with big-ass displays). I will be implementing Hoefler & Frere-Jones’ fabulous Ideal Sans through their webfonts service — we are Beta testers.

My main goal is twofold: (1) to build a properly coded and CSS-ed website and (2) get the “B-Sides” out into the main fold (they’ll be called “Noted”) and build in a space for linking to fun logo-y things (called “Linked”). And, yeah, in a month or so, it should be fully working. Comments are welcome on this post and follow us on Twitter to get regular updates of what has been achieved with each upload.

Opinion BY Armin

Credit Dos and Don’ts

Launched in 2010, Credit Do is a non-profit organization that aims to give youngsters a good grasp of what it takes to be financially responsible and independent while at the same time doing social good. Participants enroll in a project like, say, a food drive and they earn credit towards purchasing food, clothes, supplies, etc. from the local supermarket involved and then for every credit they earn ($10 an hour) another company will match that amount and place it in the participant’s saving account. A cycle of goodwill and small amounts of money earned! All the while, Credit Do provides simple lessons on finances. This month, they launched their first comprehensive website and new identity by New York, NY-based Mucca.

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Opinion BY Armin

Home is Where the Holes Is

In April of 2012 it was announced that two Manchester cultural institutions — Cornerhouse, an “international centre for contemporary visual arts and independent film” and the Library Theatre Company, who produce a mixture of contemporary drama and modern classic plays — would merge to create a single, producing arts organization. Now, this new organization has a name, HOME, and new identity designed by o street and Creative Concern.

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Opinion BY Armin

Hawaiian Airlines Exteeeends its Service

Announced this month by Hawaiian Airlines, Ohana by Hawaiian will be a new über regional airline between the islands of Moloka‘i and Lana‘i flying in adorable-looking, 48-passenger ATR42 turboprop aircrafts. The new name — the Hawaiian word for “family” — logo, and livery have been designed by renown textile and apparel designer Sig Zane (and son). Before we get to the rest of the post: my apologies for the crappy logo image above; there is no clean image anywhere of it.

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