Opinion BY Armin

ITG Staggers

Established in 1987 in New York and now with 17 offices in 10 countries ITG (Investment Technology Group) is “an independent research broker partnering with global portfolio managers and traders throughout the investment process, from investment decision through to settlement.” If that’s a little unclear — it is to me — they help “clients understand market trends, improve performance, mitigate risk, and navigate increasingly complex markets.” To coincide with its 25th anniversary, ITG has dropped its full name and introduced a new identity and “brandline”, Decoding Signal from Noise, by Landor.

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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

X Connects the Spot

Although most of us here in the U.S. associate Nextel with the now defunct company that merged with Sprint in 2005, which basically stopped pushing the Nextel brand at the consumer level, there is a whole alternate universe of Nextel-branded mobile services in Latin America. First extended as Nextel de Mexico in 1998, the company changed to NII Holdings in 2002 and now oversees the Nextel brand in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Peru and Chile. Employing more than 14,000 people, NII Holdings counts with 9.84 million subscribers. This week, the company introduced a new identity designed by the San Francisco office of Landor.

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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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Opinion BY Armin

A Spark in the Wrong Place

Founded in 1849 and originally named The Australian Mutual Provident Society, AMP is a 6,000-employee financial services providing banking, home loans, insurance, retirement, and investment options to over 3.8 million customers in Australia and New Zealand. In March, AMP merged with AXA Asia Pacific Holdings — previously part of French insurance giant AXA — and yesterday introduced a new logo, designed by the Sydney office of Landor to represent the new company.

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Opinion BY Armin

Purple Pebbles Everywhere

Founded in 1853, the current corporate form of TeliaSonera is the result of a 2002 merger between Swedish and Finnish telecommunications companies, Telia and Sonera. TeliaSonera oversees eighteen different consumer brands “in the Nordic and Baltic countries, the emerging markets of Eurasia, including Russia and Turkey, and in Spain” accounting for more than 157 million subscribers. They employ over 28,000 employees across the world and are the fifth largest telecommunications provider in Europe. Yesterday they announced a unification of all its consumer brands and its corporate identity under a single logo, designed by Landor.

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Opinion BY Armin

And I Quote, ‘Hartford HealthCare’

Hartford HealthCare (HHC) is a network of eleven different organizations and institutions providing, well, healthcare to the city of Hartford and the state of Connecticut. Its flagship institution, Hartford Hospital, was founded in 1854, and the rest include “two regional behavior health centers, a statewide clinical laboratory operation, a large primary care physician practice group, a regional home care system and a physical therapy and rehabilitation network.” This month HHC introduced a new identity designed by Landor that takes over all the individual logos of each member of its network.

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In Brief BY Armin

In Brief: March Miscellany

To start the month, some random bits from the world of identity.

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In Brief BY Armin

In Brief: January Miscellany

To end the week, and almost the month, I am unloading three brand related stories that were getting backlogged in my e-mail. (And, yes, I know about the new NBCUniversal logo and I’m waiting for clearance on some official images.)

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Opinion BY Armin

New Miracle Balloon, now Hotter

Originally a televised fundraiser first aired in 1983, Children’s Miracle Network — now Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals — has since raised over $4.2 billion in funds that go directly to over 170 children’s hospitals. Most impressively, a lot of those billion dollars are raised $1 or $2 at a time through the sale of the paper “Miracle Balloons.” This month Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals announced its name change along with a new identity done pro-bono by the Cincinnati office of Landor.

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Opinion BY Armin

San Diego Zoo Gets Funky

Founded in 1916 the San Diego Zoo is one of the largest in the world, with “over 4,000 rare and endangered animals representing more than 800 species and subspecies” including a delicious (looking not tasting) panda. The San Diego Zoo, as a parent brand and non-profit organization, also operates the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park, and San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research, and counts with more than 250,000 member households and 130,000 child memberships. Despite being all part of the same family, each entity had its own identity and it wasn’t clear that they were all fighting the same fight: Conservation. The San Diego Zoo has just introduced a new identity created by Landor that unifies the full San Diego Zoo organization under one visual identity and brand idea, “Ambassadors for Wildlife,” which grew out of the new tagline, “Wild at Heart.”

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Opinion BY Armin

Miller High Life Overhaul

First brewed in the mid nineteenth century by Frederick Miller in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Miller High Life — well, to be clear, Miller High Life wasn’t introduced until 1903 — is one of most well known American beer brands. I have never had a Miller High Life so I can’t attest to its flavor, and it’s probably for the better, so that I don’t derail into a diatribe about my preferred beers. Earlier this year, Miller High Life introduced a whole new look for all of its packaging and graphics designed by the San Francisco office of Landor, with illustration assistance by Chris Mitchell.

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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.

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