Opinion BY Armin

Stedelijk Museum Spells Out the Obvious

Established in 1895, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (“Municipal Museum Amsterdam”) is a museum for classic modern art, contemporary art, and design in Amsterdam. Currently closed, until September of this year, for a major renovation and expansion by Mels Crouwel of Benthem Crouwel Architects that will adapt the 117-year-old building with a new structure, the Stedelijk will be able to showcase its permanent collection that includes works by Vincent van Gogh, Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, and Jackson Pollock, among others. In late April the museum announced a new logo, designed by the website-less Mevis & Van Deursen, and was immediately met with discontent, gathering more than 300 comments in this Facebook post. Not much other information has been released.

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A B-side BY Armin

Ecova

The result of the recent merger between Advantage IQ and Ecos, Ecova is a “total energy and sustainability management company”. The new identity was designed by Sandstrom Partners.

Opinion BY Armin

The NBC Peacock is Gone and Rightfully So

In 2004 General Electric, the parent company of American television network NBC, purchased 80% of Vivendi Universal Entertainment, the parent company of Universal Pictures, cable channels like USA Network and Syfy (then Sci-Fi Channel), and the Universal Studios theme parks. NBC Universal was born. A powerful entertainment company with major real estate on television: NBC, Telemundo, Bravo, Syfy, USA Network, A&E, MSNBC, and CNBC among others. In 2009, cable operator Comcast announced its plans to purchase a stake in NBC Universal and as of last week, with approval of the Federal Communications Commission and U.S. Department of Justice, Comcast now owns 51% of NBC Universal, while General Electric owns 49%. On Friday, at an employee town hall meeting, Steve Burke, COO of Comcast and CEO of the new company, announced a new name, NBCUniversal (no space, thank you), and a new logo designed by Wolff Olins.

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Opinion BY Armin

Type is in the Details

An aspect of identity design that goes unexplored to a certain degree is that for religious organizations, but as everyone becomes more brand aware these spaces and communities must communicate and attract with as much urgency as any major consumer brand or corporation. In this specific case being reviewed today, we are also veering a little off from the typical redesign in that there is no big logo change, rather it’s an identity overhaul through typography for International House of Prayer (IHOP – KC) in Kansas City. Established in 1999, IHOP – KC is a young adult Christian organization that combines 24/7 prayers for justice with 24/7 works of justice, with many outreach programs for different causes. Ten years later the organization has grown to include more than 50 different departments, and with growth and little control comes graphic havoc.

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Opinion BY Armin

Midnight in the Garden of Type and Image

Before moving to a 20-acre lot in 2006, Johnson’s Backyard Garden (JBG) was literally just a garden for, well, the Johnsons, Beth and Brenton in Austin, TX. Today JBG is a 70-acre certified organic farm that functions through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, meaning that members buy a “share” in JBG’s crop and in return they get delicious boxes every week of whatever the hard-working people have harvested. JBG counts with over 1,000 members making it the biggest CSA farm in Texas. Earlier this year, JBG started using a new logo created by fellow Austinite Ryan Rhodes who happened to end up living in the Johnsons’ old house.

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