Opinion BY Armin

The Emperor’s New Coating

Established in 1866 as Herberts, then purchased by DuPont in the 1990s when it was renamed as DuPont Performance Coatings, and most recently purchased by asset manager, The Carlyle Group, the newly renamed and more independent Axalta Coating Systems is a global provider of liquid and powder coatings to automotive, transportation, general industrial, and selected architectural and decorative customers. Axalta employs 12,000 people across 35 manufacturing plants and seven R&D centers around the world, it has over 1,800 patents held or pending, and revenues of more than $4 billion in 2012. The new name and identity, both realized by Futurebrand, were announced last week.

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Opinion BY Armin

W FTW (for the Whitney)

Established in 1930, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York is devoted to the art of the United States presenting a “full range of twentieth-century and contemporary American art, with a special focus on works by living artists.” Its permanent collection contains approximately 19,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and photographs, representing more than 2,900 artists and is considered one of the finest in the world. Currently located on Madison Avenue at 75th Street since 1966, the Whitney will move to a Renzo Piano-designed building dozens of blocks south in the Meatpacking District facing the popular High Line in 2015. In preparation for this move, the museum has introduced a new identity designed by Amsterdam-based Experimental Jetset.

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Opinion BY Armin

Minsk Gets in Line

Established in 1067, Minsk is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Belarus with nearly 2 million people — about 20 percent of the population of the country. Today, as described by the Minsk City Executive Committee, Minsk is “a modern, dynamic city, the largest transport and logistics center, a cultural and scientific center of the country” with high education standards, positive diversity, clean and green (as in parks and stuff), and mostly as a city on the rise. “Minsk,” however, share London- and Moscow-based agency INSTID, who have been working with the city on its new identity since August 2012, “lacks a clear identity. Its residents define themselves mostly by nationality, and admit that Minsk does not have a particular culture or tradition of its own.” Commissioned by the city’s tourist information agency, INSTID’s task was to “help improve international recognition of Minsk to help it attract foreign investment, visitors, and talent” and “help residents feel proud of Minsk and develop a unique city culture based on their distinct character, and create a powerful platform for city’s future development.” The new identity will begin to be implemented this summer.

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Opinion BY Armin

Mall of America Gets Wrapped Up

Opened to the public in 1992 in the suburb of Bloomington in Minneapolis near the Twin Cities, the Mall of America (MOA) is he United States’ largest retail and entertainment complex as a 4.87 million square foot structure sitting in a plot of land 78 acres big — either 7 baseball stadiums or 32 Boeing 747s would fit inside. Attracting 42 million visitors annually, MOA houses 520 shops, an indoor amusement park with 27 rides, an indoor aquarium, a 14-screen movie theater, and even a chapel that weds over 300 couples every year. In other words: it’s big, it’s bombastic, and, um, it’s big. Yesterday, MOA introduced its new identity designed by Minneapolis-based Duffy & Partners.

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Opinion BY Armin

Destination: Corner of Stuff and Stuff

In 2005, the MoMA Design Store launched the first of its Destination: Design series that brings products from different cities and countries from around the world to the museum’s store. The project has a couple of benefits: a) more cool stuff to buy at MoMA and b) exposure for local artists who may not otherwise get a chance to sell their work at such large scale. So far, the series has brought products from Finland, Denmark, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Japan, Seoul, Brazil, Portugal, Istanbul, and Mexico. Its latest edition is Destination: NYC, a collection with approximately 200 lifestyle products including home accessories, furniture, paper goods and jewelry — all products are manufactured in the U.S.. Each edition in the series has had its own identity, sometimes designed in-house at MoMA, others in collaboration. This one was designed with the School of Visual Arts Masters in Branding Program under the guidance of Mark Kingsley, who also wrote advertising headlines and copy, designed window and store displays (currently in progress) and product photography.

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Opinion BY Armin

Acumen’s Manifesto as Logo

Established in 2001, Acumen (previously Acumen Fund) is a non-profit organization that “raises charitable donations to invest in companies, leaders, and ideas that are changing the way the world tackles poverty.” Acumen invests in companies with a focus on operations in East Africa, West Africa, India, Pakistan or Latin America in the sectors of agriculture, energy, education, health, housing, or water and, most importantly, that they make a product or deliver a service that addresses a critical need for the poor. Over the weekend, Acumen shortened its name, introduced a new identity designed by London-based johnson banks, and launched a new website by briteweb.

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Opinion BY Armin

April Fools: Google Chrome’s Broken Image Icon Heals Broken Hearts

First used in 1994 with the beta release of Netscape, the “broken image” icon has become a staple of web browsing. In this Quora question, Netscape’s original UI designer gives credit to Marsh Chamberlin of DataGlyph for creating the first, literally-iconic rendition of a shattered frame containing a sphere, pyramid, and cube. Since then, some browsers have used variations of the theme while others, like Safari, have gone with their own idea like a question mark for Apple’s own browser. Until earlier this year, Google’s Chrome browser had been using its own take on the original but one thing we know is that you can’t contain Google to the status quo. A new broken image icon has started appearing across users’ Chrome browser this year and since we’ve covered Google’s favicon, not once but twice, I thought it would be relevant to cover this minor yet significant change.

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Opinion BY Armin

ROM goes Portal on its Logo

Opened in 1914, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), an agency of the Government of Ontario, is Canada’s largest museum, with a dual focus on natural history and world cultures, attracting over one million visitors each year to its 30 galleries and six million objects in its collection. The museum is also well-known (and easily spotted) for its Daniel Libeskind-designed addition in 2007 that was part of an initiative dubbed “Renaissance ROM” for which the previous logo was designed. This week ROM introduced a new logo designed by New York, NY-based LaPlaca Cohen. (For a Government-owned museum, you know how much grief they must be getting for hiring Yanks.)

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Opinion BY Armin

Activating Schools without Clichés

Launched at the end of February, Let’s Move! Active Schools is a new initiative that will provide “simple steps and tools to help schools create active environments where students get 60 minutes of physical activity before, during and after the school day.” Active Schools is part of Michelle Obama’s larger Let’s Move program and is being powered by Nike, which will invest over the course of five years “$50 million in the U.S. to increase the physical activity of kids in schools and communities as well as target advocacy efforts to inspire kids and draw additional resources to this important effort” as stated in this press release that lists the rest of the program’s partners. Nike worked with Wolff Olins to create a new brand for Let’s Move! Active Schools.

Update: The Nike team that worked with WO was Joe Stitzlein and Michael Malowanczyk. A few more images have been posted at the end, courtesy of Michael.

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Opinion BY Armin

Flexible Harsh is the New Sexy Ugly

Sticking with a theme early this week, today we are featuring another flexible and (not self- but still) generative identity. Although the company for which it is for does not meet the criteria for the kind of company that typically makes it unto Brand New, I’m always interested in showing approaches to identity that break out from those regularly featured here. Established in 2002, Fluidity is a Los Angeles, CA-based design consultancy that specializes in architectural and landscape integrations of water: fountains, pools, waterfalls, and more. A new, fluid — yeah, I know, I know, easy pun — identity has been designed by Chicago, IL-based thirst.

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Opinion BY Armin

Executive Flock

Launched in 1999, the Executive Master of Science in Communications Management program (EMScom for short) is a 20-month, international part-time program for mid-career professionals at the Faculty of Communication Sciences in the Università della Svizzera Italiana in the Italian-speaking, and Italy-bordering city of Lugano, Switzerland. EMScom “prepares professionals in developing new perspectives in key management areas, including management of stakeholder relationships, public relations, reputation management, and corporate identity on a strategic level — all with the ultimate goal of enabling communicators to go beyond simply communication and to contribute to their organization’s corporate strategy.” Considered a leader in its field and wanting to raise their international profile, EMScom introduced a new identity designed by Moving Brands around the narrative of “Change your perspective” which highlights the “transformational process, both personally and professionally, that stakeholders identified as essential to the course.”

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Opinion BY Armin

Open Sesame

Established in 1938 in the middle of National Park De Hoge Veluwe, a little over an hour outside of Amsterdam, the Kröller-Müller Museum is home to the second largest collection of Van Gogh paintings in the world as well as boasting the biggest sculpture garden in Europe. Looking to attract more visitors and raise its profile the museum has introduced a new identity designed by the Amsterdam office of Edenspiekermann.

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Friday Likes BY Armin

Friday Likes 33

The common theme in this week’s Friday Likes is that some thinking has gone into them — not that past Friday Likes didn’t have any thinking, but these have a stronger bent on concept than usual.

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Opinion BY Armin

Bulgaria’s Everything-but-the-Kitchen-Sink Approach Sinks

I always have a hard time introducing destinations so let’s just go with a few, simple facts about Bulgaria: located in Southeastern Europe it is the continent’s 14th-largest country with more than 7 million habitants and, apropos to this review, welcomes more than 8 million tourists per year. Last week, the Bulgarian Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism introduced a new tourism logo designed by Sofia-based Publicis MARC Group that will begin to be used in September 2013.

Update: This new logo system does NOT replace the painted rose logo. This is NOT a country brand (for which the painted rose logo is used) but a tourism brand — the challenge being “To create a globally competitive integrated brand system for the first time in the history of the Bulgarian travel industry”. Publicis MARC Group has also provided some text. Apologies for any confusion.

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Opinion BY Armin

I See Yoo

Just launched by SKY New Zealand and Television New Zealand, IGLOO is a “digital set top box that plugs into your telly and broadcasts through your UHF aerial” giving users in New Zealand access to free-to-air channels and, its main hook, a pre-paid range of premium channels without long-term contracts, going on a month-to-month basis with only the channels you want and not bloated packages with channels no one watches. The name, brand, and roll-out have been created by Interbrand Australia.

Update: I have changed the title of the post (originally “Not your Eskimos’ Igloo” (as a play on “Not your parents’ this or that)) as I was not aware that Eskimo is considered a pejorative term. Apologies to anyone who thought of it as offensive; it wasn’t my intention.

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Opinion BY Armin

X Marks the Finnish Line

Set to open in early 2013 the University of the Arts Helsinki (“Taideyliopisto” in Finnish) is the new organizational name for the merger of three existing universities: the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, the Sibelius Academy (music) and the Theatre Academy Helsinki. The first two were established in the mid to late 1800s while the latter in 1979, and together they have around 2,000 enrolled students. The new name was accepted in January and this week they introduced their identity, designed by Helsinki-based Bond.

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Opinion BY Armin

ITV Follows New Script

Established in 1955, ITV (originally for Independent Television Authority) is the biggest commercial television network in the UK and is the main competition of the BBC and Channel 4. ITV operates five different channels: ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, and CITV covering everything from reality TV to sports to drama to sitcoms to children programming. Last week, at its upfronts event, ITV unveiled a new umbrella logo for its company and all its channels to be rolled out on January 2013 along with supporting new on-air packaging for all channels. The design has been done in-house. For the most comprehensive coverage and reporting about all the changes, please see this Digital Spy story.

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Opinion BY Armin

Good Lookin’ Parasites, Bacteria, and Viruses

Established in 2011, The Bloomsbury Institute for Pathogen Research is a joint initiative between University College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to “form a centre for excellence in experimental medicine” by bringing together cutting-edge pathogen research, experimental medicine and clinical development; translating research on bacteria, parasites and viruses into new modes of detection, treatment and control. A new identity was introduced earlier this month, designed by London-based Igloo.

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Opinion BY Armin

Moustache Makeover

Established last Friday, November 2, 2012, team Brand Moustache is an initiative launched by Armin Vit to mobilize the male audience of Brand New to grow facial hair between their upper lips and noses to benefit Movember, the worldwide movement to generate awareness and raise funds to support prostate cancer and testicular cancer initiatives. On a whim, Armin decided to join Movember and lead a team of willing participants as captain of team Brand Moustache, for which he designed a logo that, upon unveiling, ignited controversy among the very readers he was trying to rally: the logo, various of them claimed, looked like Hitler and his iconic rectangle moustache. Armin is Jewish. Armin hates Hitler. Upset, Armin denied the claim and proceeded to call said readers doofuses — then removed the Hitler moustache in exchange for a more walrus-y one and, in a hissy fit, declared he might as well just be designing for “the lowest common denominator.” The PR department of UnderConsideration LLC convened with its C-level executives and after circulating a memo around the office decided the best thing would be to signal change by redesigning team Brand Moustache’s logo. Today, team Brand Moustache unveils its new, flexible identity designed by Austin, TX-based Armin.

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Opinion BY Armin

Weve Drinks your Milkshake and Eats your Apostrophe

Launched this month, Weve is a joint venture between the (also newly launched) EE, Telefonica UK (O2), and Vodafone UK — the three largest mobile network operators in the UK that together account for 80% of its mobile customers. Weve is meant to “create and accelerate the development of mobile marketing and wallet services” and provide “the ability for advertisers, retailers, banks and many other organisations to connect to a large-scale mobile commerce platform via a consistent set of technologies and standards, without having to duplicate effort.” In other words, as I understand it, it’s a fancy way of easing the process for the three mobile providers to monetize their platforms. The name is explained in the tagline, “Weve joined up mobile”, as in “we’ve” as in “weve”. Clever, but a little odd. The new name and identity have been created by London-based SomeOne.

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Opinion BY Armin

Colombia goes Cuckoo for Coco

Known mostly for two clichés — coffee and drug cartels — Colombia is a rich and diverse country and due to its large geographical size and population it is one of the most active and influential countries in South America. It also benefits from an amazing location at the Northwest point of its continent, with coasts on both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean, a lush forest, and an epic mountain range in the Andes. Last Friday, before a soccer match between Colombia and Uruguay, the host introduced its new country brand and tagline, “The Answer is Colombia,” created by the joint efforts of Sancho BBDO and BBD for the identity and by JWT, RepGrey, and MEC for the advertising.

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Opinion BY Christian Palino

Perot Museum Hoists Brackets

Established in 2006 in Dallas, TX, the Museum of Nature & Science is the sum of The Dallas Museum of Natural History, The Science Place, and the Dallas Children’s Museum that came together that year. In January of 2013, the museum will be relocated to a new building and be renamed as the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. The new identity, inspired by Morphosis Architects’ cube-shaped building, was designed by Pentagram partners DJ Stout and Michael Bierut.

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Opinion BY Armin

These Books are brought to you by the Letter M

Established in 1957, Móra Publishing is one of the largest publishers in Hungary, specializing in both classic and contemporary children and youth books by Hungarian and international authors. For many generations of kids, Móra books have been part of their upbringing. Without a traditional logo, Móra has simply been typesetting the company name in the same title typeface as whichever book or series its on. Budapest-based Made by Zwoelf has just finished a new identity for the publisher and a logo that will be emblazoned on 76,000 book covers yearly.

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Opinion BY Armin

A Night at the Shrewsbury

Located close to the Welsh border in Shropshire county in the West Midlands, England, Shrewsbury is a small town with a population of 70,000. What it lacks in human beings it makes up for in charm, with a town center still laid out in its medieval form with boutique shops and restaurants. Facing competition from other, nearby small towns with their own charms and looking to increase daytrip and overnight-stay visitors, the Shropshire Council and Shropshire Tourism decided it was time to establish a brand for the town and they worked with London-based & Smith and We All Need Words to design it. One of the town’s attractions is its sixteenth-century Tudor architecture: houses with black and white timber facades in geometric patterns, which served as one of the main elements of the new identity.

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A B-Side BY Armin

Travel Insurance Direct

Travel Insurance Direct, as its name implies, is a travel insurance company in Australia. A new logo and identity were introduced earlier this year, designed by Sydney-based End of Work. A little video and application shown below (or after the jump). You can see a few more applications here (scroll down until you find it).

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Opinion BY Armin

Generative Alumni

The A3 EPFL Alumni Association is, as its name evidently implies, the alumni association for the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), a higher education institution established by the Swiss Federal Government in 1853 devoted to engineering and science. With close to 9,000 enrolled students in undergraduate and graduate courses, EPFL is constantly ranked among the top universities in the world and its alumni include CEOs of Logitech and Danone, among other notables. The alumni association is a network of more than 18,000 graduates of the EPFL and it recently introduced a new identity designed by Geneva, Switzerland-based Enigma.

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Opinion BY Armin

Shutterstock has you in its Sight

Established in 2003, Shutterstock is a provider of stock footage, stock photography, vectors, and illustrations, with a library that includes more than 19 million royalty-free images and over 500,000 footage clips from more than 35,000 contributing artists. Shutterstock gained some recognition for going against the pay-per-image-and-its-resolution with a subscription model that allows users to download as many as 25 images a day. This week Shutterstock introduced a new identity guided by Matt Angorn, Shutterstock Vice President and Creative Director, with Lippincott.

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Opinion BY Armin

There is no Gon like a Hexagon

Just launched in March — and, from what I understand, spun off Reproplan, a digital service bureau (a la FedEx Office) with 22 locations in Germany — PIGMENTPOL is a digital printing company with three locations across Germany providing small and large format printing, digital printing on specialty materials, fine art printing, textile printing, as well as all kinds of finishing. Their new identity was designed in collaboration between Dresden-based ATMO Design Studio and Berlin-based FELD. While the opening image above looks anything but interesting, the rest of the identity makes up for it.

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Opinion BY Armin

Reading is Fundamental is Fun

Established in 1966, Reading is Fundamental (RIF) is a nonprofit literacy organization whose main mission is “to motivate young children to read by working with children, their parents, and community members to make reading a fun and beneficial part of everyday life.” In its 44-year history RIF has distributed more than 380 million free, new books to more than 33 million children and counts with 400,000 volunteers nationwide but without a prominent and relevant brand campaign since the 1980s, RIF has lost awareness in the eyes of the public. Working with Mother New York, RIF has introduced a new identity, with the logo having been rolled out in November of last year and a more comprehensive brand being rolled out now.

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Opinion BY Armin

Moscow Design Museum on the Grid

Set to open its first exhibition this year, the Moscow Design Museum is “an international exhibition and education platform and the first, the only and the unique design museum in Russia. It is a space where the general public will be able to view the best examples of international and Russian design.” Founded by Alexandra Sankova, Nadezhda Bakuradze, Stepan Lukyanov, and Valery Patkonen — four independent creatives — the museum will have a home base in Moscow’s Artplay culture center but it is mainly imagined as a nomadic, pop-up museum. Its identity has been designed by Amsterdam-based Lava, who also share a partner role in the museum, advising on content and vision.

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Opinion BY Armin

Boom Goes the Cloud

In Beta and Alpha versions last year, CX (formerly Cloud Experience), a “cloud storage and data file management system,” launched this month. Aiming to compete against Dropbox, CX allows users to sync their files, e-mail, and calendar on the magic place that is the cloud and they are trying to do it with more graphic and social media flair than Dropbox. Their new identity has been designed by Moving Brands.

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Opinion BY Armin

Follow-Up: DC Comics

Yesterday, DC Comics officially unveiled its new identity, after the whole internet (including us) stole its thunder at the start of the week when we all judged its new branding effort based on a single, black-and-white rendition of their new logo. Now it’s an uphill battle to get people on board with what is actually a fairly good looking and flexible identity designed by Landor.

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Opinion BY Armin

T&D is for Twists and Drop Shadows

As part of China Radio International (CRI), the state-owned radio broadcast system of the People’s Republic of China, and an extension of the news site CRI Online, T&D (for Television and Digital) is a new platform established to hold all of its new media — from online broadcast to network television to mobile content. The new identity has been created by The Brand Union China.

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Opinion BY Armin

Abstract Sports

Established in 1990, FADU (Federação Académica do Desporto Universitário, Academic Federation of University Sports in English) is an organization in Portugal focused on sports as a tool of educational development. It acts like a less carnivorous version of the NCAA by organizing events and enabling communication between higher education students, almost 7,000 of them, across all possible sports from soccer to basketball to chess to bridge among 25 total activities. A new identity has been created by Braga, Portugal-based Gen Design Studio.

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Opinion BY Armin

Sign Here

Only one of three mobile telecommunication service providers in Argentina, Personal, whose parent company is giant Telecom Argentina, has 18 million customers. (Sorry, don’t have much else to say about it). Earlier this month, Personal introduced a new identity created by London-based This is Real Art and a new ad campaign by TBWA\Buenos Aires.

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Opinion BY John J Custer

I’m With…

Formerly known as Polytechnic South West until 1992, Plymouth University is the ninth largest university in the UK, with a student body reaching just over 30,000 students along with 3,000 faculty and staff members. In June of this year, Plymouth University launched its new identity, “With Plymouth University,” designed jointly by here design and Buddy.

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Opinion BY Armin

Fight Old Logos, Make New Good Ones

Established in 1989, Alzheimer’s Australia, a federation of State and Territory member associations, is a “charity providing support and advocacy for Australians leaving with dementia.” Earlier this month Alzheimer’s Australia introduced a new identity designed by Interbrand Australia with the goal of making their “first move in a step change towards the way the organisation voices the issues surrounding dementia and the lives it affects.” The identity was launched on October 13 with a march at Parliament House, to demand $500 million over five years to address the dementia epidemic.

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Opinion BY Armin

War! What is it good for? For Good Logos

Founded in 1917 and first opened to the public in 1920, the Imperial War Museum — no plural at the time — was established to create a record of the experience of Great Britain during the first World War. Since then, and with an expansion to four other museums — IWM London; IWM North in Trafford, Greater Manchester; IWM Duxford near Cambridge; the Churchill War Rooms in Whitehall, London; and the historic ship HMS Belfast — the Imperial War Museums (IWM) is “the world’s leading authority on conflict and its impact, focusing on Britain, its former Empire and the Commonwealth, from the First World War to the present.” IWM, as it is now officially named, introduced a new identity last month, designed by London-based Hat Trick.

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A B-Side BY Armin

Marina Port Vell

Built in the early 1990s, Marina Port Vell is a waterfront harbor in Barcelona that is currently undergoing a major transformation. The new identity has been designed by London-based Aesop Agency. “The logo itself is an aperture shaped ‘M’ with a playful nod evocative of boats entering the marina,” from this story. More identity applications here.

Thanks to Marc Nijborg for the tip.

Opinion BY Armin

Asian Art Museum Turned on its Head

First opened in 1966 as a wing of the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, the Asian Art Museum, now in its own building, is currently one of the largest museums in the Western world devoted exclusively to Asian Art, housing a collection of over 17,000 artworks. It was also one of the most financially troubled museums in the Western world devoted exclusively to Asian Art with a $120 million debt, which was recently announced would be solved, setting the museum up for a much needed reinvention: “Our new brand,” explains Jay Xu, Director of the Asian Art Museum “promises to awaken the past and inspire the next. It means we’ll unlock the past for visitors and bring it to life by sparking connections. We’ll also be a catalyst for new art, new creativity and new thinking.” To help turn things around, literally, the Asian Art Museum worked with Wolff Olins to design its new identity.

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Opinion BY Armin

The Edmonton Valley Zoo is Watching You

First opened to the public in 1959, the Edmonton Valley Zoo is a small zoo with 350 animals — in contrast to, say, the 4,000 animals found at the San Diego Zoo. With a master plan in place since 2005 and committed funding from the city since 2009 the Edmonton Valley Zoo is gearing up for a lot of changes and expansions for 2012. This past May the zoo announced a new identity designed by Edmonton-based Calder Bateman.

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Opinion BY Armin

A1, Flexible Enough?

Established in 2010 from the merger of two popular telecommunication providers, A1 and Telekom Austria, A1 Telekom Austria is now the leading service provider in Austria with more than 5 million mobile and 2 million fixed-line subscribers and 9,700 employees. At the end of April they announced that the two consumer brands would merge into a single one under the A1 name and a new identity created by Saffron. A micro site introducing the new identity (with a brief movie) can be found here and a press release (PDF and in German) here.

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Opinion BY Armin

M Opposite W

Established in 1997 McCann Worldgroup is the parent company of eight businesses, including the well-known, global advertising agency McCann Erickson — in turn well known for acquiring Sterling Cooper in 1963 — and brand agency Futurebrand. McCann Worldgroup is owned by giant Interpublic Group. At the beginning of the year McCann Worldgroup announced the launch of a new identity, designed by Futurebrand, and it has been gradually rolling out this year.

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Opinion BY Armin

Not Your Parents’ Veterans

Established in 2004, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) is the first and largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization in the U.S. for veterans of its most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its mission is to “improve the lives of this country’s newest generation of veterans and their families.” IAVA counts with 200,000 members — membership is free as they note that its members have “already paid [their] dues in Iraq and Afghanistan.” This week IAVA introduced a new identity designed pro bono by Landor.

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A B-Side BY Armin

Florian Stephens

Florian Stephens is a London-based 3D artist and designer. Fellow Londoners at Disengised have designed a logo — an “icosahedron (20 identical equilateral triangular faces, 30 edges and 12 vertices) which is colored in dynamically” — that has over 1,700 possible permutations. Case study here.

Opinion BY Armin

OCAD U, All New

Founded in 1876, OCAD University is Canada’s largest art and design institution, located in Toronto, Ontario. Formerly known as Ontario College of Art and Design, the school changed its name in 2007 to OCAD University when it received degree-granting status. Despite the “C” in the name still standing for “College” the acronym was kept as it had substantial equity and recognition. In 2004, OCAD University moved into its new campus, a radical structure designed by Alsop Architects that looks like a cross between a crossword puzzle and those super tall robots from War of the Worlds, with some color sprinkled for good measure. It may sound like a jab at the building, but the thing is truly jaw-dropping when you are standing below it. Anyway. Last night, at the 96th Annual Graduate Exhibition, the school unveiled a new identity, created by Toronto-based Bruce Mau Design (BMD), as well as another slight name change, to OCAD U.

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Opinion BY Armin

Follow-Up: XXII Olympic Winter Games

In December of 2009 we reported on the logo and look, created by the Moscow office of Interbrand, of the XXII Olympic Winter Games that will take place in 2014 in Sochi, Russia. This week the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee unveiled the concept of the Look of the Games which was designed by BOSCO Sports, a sponsor of the Olympics, as well as the official uniform provider for the Russian Olympic team since 2002. They donated the work to the committee. The look revolves around “the principle of the ‘patchwork quilt’ — a combination of 16 designs representing the most famous traditional Russian arts and crafts, ranging from Gzhel to Khokhloma.”

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Opinion BY Armin

There is no “i” in Thnk. Seriously, there isn’t.

Launched this year, with the first class beginning in 2012, the THNK Creative Leadership Program at THNK, The Amsterdam School of Creative Leadership is a post-graduate program designed to “provoke and inspire professionals, entrepreneurs and scientists into becoming the world’s next creative leaders.” Limited to 30 participants the program runs for a whole year with one month of “basic training” off campus, four months of “intensive training” on campus, and five months of “acceleration program” off campus. Tuition is €43,000 (US$63,000). An identity for the school has been created by Amsterdam-based Lava.

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A B-Side BY Armin

Youth Service America

Founded in 1986, Youth Service America (YSA) “improves communities by increasing the number and the diversity of young people, ages 5-25, serving in substantive roles.” Their goals are to “Educate youth, teachers, community organizations, media, and public officials in the power of youth as problem solvers.” and “Engage children and youth as volunteers, as academic achievers, and as community leaders.” A new identity has been created by Redding, CT-based Alexander Isley Inc.. More on the new identity here.

Opinion BY Armin

CooperVision, Looking Good

Established in 1979, CooperVision, part of The Cooper Companies, is a manufacturer of contact lenses that hasn’t enjoyed the mainstream consumer popularity of competing brands like Acuvue, Bausch+Lomb, or CIBA Vision, placing it squarely in fourth place. Although CooperVision had a good rapport with eye care professionals recognition among consumers who more and more are getting their contact lenses straight from the source. In March CopperVision introduced a new identity designed by Siegel+Gale that aims to bring it more visibility.

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Opinion BY Clinton Duncan

Eurostar Sculpts New Logo

Launched in 1994 Eurostar was, until recently a tri-nation collaboration between Britain, Belgium and France, aimed at moving people quickly on trains, often at speeds up to 300 kilometers per hour, and in a tunnel 120 meters under the surface of the freezing cold English channel. Yep, we’re using metrics for this review people. With a re-structuring of corporate management, and consolidation to one entity based in London, Eurostar sought to rebrand and engaged the services of SomeOne. You can see a video summary of the brand at SomeOne’s project page here.

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Opinion BY Armin

MIT Media Lab, Full of Squares

Founded in 1985 by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Professor Nicholas Negroponte and former MIT President Jerome Wiesner in an I.M. Pei-designed building, the MIT Media Lab is one of the world’s most renown research and development centers. Funded by corporate sponsorship, the Media Lab counted with a $26 million budget in 2009 – 10 and served 138 graduate students and 28 faculty and principal investigators. “Unconstrained by traditional disciplines, Lab designers, engineers, artists, and scientists work atelier-style in close to 30 research groups conducting more than 400 projects that range from neuroengineering, to how children learn, to developing the city car of the future.” Inspired by the facility’s expansion in 2010, which “manifests the spirit of transparency, mutual inspiration and collaboration” this new logo designed in collaboration by E Roon Kang and TheGreenEyl was recently introduced.

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Opinion BY Armin

Disney Junior, more Flexible than Disney Senior

This coming February Disney is introducing a new channel and programming block, called Disney Junior, that will replace SOAPnet and Playhouse Disney, respectively. Playhouse Disney currently airs through the main Disney Channel and is aimed at the preschool range of kids, typically 2 – 5. Disney Junior will keep airing through the Disney Channel and expand its audience to include 7-year-olds and new content. Playhouse Disney also operates as a full channel in more than twenty markets overseas. SOAPnet is a channel about soap operas so… um, yeah, it makes perfect sense for people that watch soap operas to be rewarded with a new kids channel. (I’m guessing they don’t give away cable channels like toothpicks at a restaurant so Disney is probably using its cable real estate to reshuffle). Anyway, Disney Junior will carry favorites like Handy Manny and Special Agent Oso. Announced back in May of 2010, Disney Junior presented its new identity in late October of 2010.

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A B-Side BY Armin

Swedish Travelling Exhibitions

Established in 1965, Riksutställningar (Swedish Travelling Exhibitions) is an organization devoted to organizing and mobilizing art exhibitions not just in Sweden but all of Europe. Its new identity was designed by Stockholm, Sweden-based Gabor Palotai. “Built upon a square and a comma, the graphic profile communicates stability and changeability. The square frames several perspectives: a picture frame, the boxes used to transport the exhibitions, and the rooms where exhibitions are displayed. As a continuation without an end, the comma represents the mission of the travelling exhibition: to remake, rethink, and rebuild.” More applications here.

Opinion BY Armin

Not Your Parents’ Librarians

With campuses in Copenhagen and Aalborg in Denmark, the Informationsvidenskabelige Akademi (IVA for short and “The Royal School of Library and Information Science” for English) serves around 1,000 students ranging from undergraduates to PhD candidates in the field of library and information sciences and it operates under the Danish Ministry of Cultural Affairs. Facing the challenge of being considered behind the times, the school recently changed to its current name from the previously old-fashioned moniker of Danmarks Biblioteksskole (Danish Library School) and introduced a complete new identity by Danish studio Make.

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Opinion BY Armin

Shape of Singapore

Geographically small at barely 275 square miles, Singapore is a country big with culture, architecture, scenery, financial prowess, and diversity, playing an important role in keeping the wheels of global business churning. This past March, the Singapore Tourism Board launched a new positioning and identity, Your Singapore, to attract tourism, business and the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) market. The identity and advertising have been created by BBH Asia-Pacific and it replaces the previous “Uniquely Singapore” campaign.

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Opinion BY Armin

Myspace Goes Blank

Launched in 2003, Myspace — capitalized as MySpace at the time — became the de facto social networking platform for youngsters attracting 1 million users in its first year, 5 million a few months later, and over 100 million users amassed to this day. With the ability to customize their profile pages, users unleashed a fury of apocalyptic, senses-attacking, browser-crashing designs laden with unicorns and party pictures that eventually became a user interface punchline. No Myspace story is complete without the mention of Facebook which took on the reigns of the social network kingdom and became the Myspace Killer. More than killed, it wounded. And it has taken Myspace three or four years to recover, or at least attempt a recovery. And it starts this week. Myspace announced a complete redesign of its platform with new features, interactivity, and bells and whistles for its users along with a new identity.

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Opinion BY Armin

Where the Cold Wind Blows

Right at the very top of Europe where, if you were to go further North, you would eventually find yourself at the South of the world, lies the Nordkyn peninsula. Home to two municipalities — Gamvik and Lebesby — in the county of Finnmark, Norway. Nordkyn is cold. Arctic cold. It is also scenic. Dreamy scenic. Perfect for a Coen brothers movie. The two municipalities have come together to promote tourism to the peninsula and worked with Oslo-based Neue Design Studio to create an identity that, literally, reflects the nature of this destination: Visit Nordkyn.

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Opinion BY Armin

PricewaterhouseCoopersWasALongName

The clearest picture I have of what PricewaterhouseCoopers does is of two dudes in tuxedos holding a briefcase with the envelopes that announce the winners at the Oscars. But, clearly, with 163,000 employees in 151 countries they do more than that. They are one of the “Big Four” professional services firms — the three others are Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young, and KPMG — and boast gross revenues of 26.2 billion USD (fiscal year 2009). Officially, they “provide industry-focused assurance, tax and advisory services to enhance value for their clients.” Yesterday was the official announcement that PricewaterhouseCoopers would be changing its name to PwC, keeping the mouthful of a name as the full name of the global organization for legal purposes. PwC also introduced a new identity created by the London office of Wolff Olins.

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Guest Opinion by Mark Holtmann Posted BY Brand New

Two Triangles are Better than One

The Dutch public broadcasting organization VPRO (an acronym that translates into “Liberal Protestant Radio Broadcasting Company”) started its life in 1926 as a religious radio broadcaster. Over the years it became more liberal and less religious until, in the sixties, it planted itself firmly in the avant-garde by being the first television broadcaster showing a nude woman on national television. Since then the VPRO never left its nonconformist role, with slight stubbornness purposefully choosing those programs, topics and formats that the other broadcasting companies passed over. Although not well known outside of the Netherlands, the VPRO is the real deal. It continuously airs intelligent, cultural and quirky programs, the stuff that makes TV interesting.

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Opinion BY Armin

Manufacturing Happiness

Already three months active and remaining open until the end of October, the 2010 Shanghai World Expo has attracted as many as 500,000-plus visitors (or as low as 80,000-plus) per day with pavilions representing 195 countries, all working under the theme of “‘Better City, Better Life,’ representing the common wish of the whole humankind for a better living in future urban environments.” One pavilion — check Flickr for images of others — that has taken this theme to extreme heights is Latvia, who is treating visitors to its Technology of happiness, a three-story structure wrapped in 100,000 colorful, transparent, 15 ×15-centimeter plastic plates that houses a vertical tunnel that shoots people up in the air with, you bet, happiness. The Latvia pavilion even has its own happy identity, created by Latvian design firm Asketic.

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Opinion BY Armin

Follow-up: AOL, Round 2

Six months after rebooting their identity and to coincide with their 25th anniversary celebrations, AOL has unleashed its “2nd Collection” of logos and animations with help from designers, illustrators and animators around the world, with direction by Wolff Olins. To consolidate this effort, AOL has launched AOL Artists, a repository of all the contributors and snippets of their work, a fairly generous move to acknowledge these artists’ work and give them some additional exposure. AOL Artists also introduces “Project on Creativity,” a year-long celebration that highlights one creative icon — Chuck Close being the inaugural one — and also awards twenty-five scholarships, each of $25,000, to upcoming talent. Finally, a new corporate site for AOL is now live.

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