NOTE: This is an archived version of the first incarnation of Brand New. All posts have been closed to comments. Please visit underconsideration.com/brandnew for the latest version.

As its original name implied, Union Bank has a big presence in the state of California but as the organization has grown, expanding into neighboring states like Oregon and Washington, and with two international offices and six in other states of the U.S., it was time to drop the “of California.”

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The statement from Richard Maddocks, Chairman of the Australasian Writers and Art Directors Association, AWARD for short, states in part: Let’s be clear. AWARD is not a committee, a board or an institution. AWARD is a community. […] AWARD is as strong, dynamic and powerful as the people who participate in it. AWARD evolves as the community that forms it evolves. Based on the latter two principles, Interbrand Australia created a new, living identity that reflects the evolving and dynamic nature of the organization.

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A little over five months ago Kraft Foods introduced its new corporate logo with an accompanying press release that stated: “[The new logo] signals to employees, consumers and investors what the new Kraft Foods is all about.” This past week Kraft Foods modified its logo already. So, as a consumer, what this logo change signals to me about Kraft Foods is a company that can not make sound decisions to begin with and, once made, can not live with them. Which is a little harsh, but if we are to believe what we read in press releases, then let’s keep corporations accounted for their spin.

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Last week Creative Review reported on what I think is one of the biggest brand stories of the year: The new look for MTV International headed by Universal Everything. It would be bigger than big had this new look also applied to MTV in the U.S. but, unless I got my 60-plus MTV channels confused, this change only applies to the MTV International Network, which is still a hell of a lot of channels for a hell of a lot of people. What makes this big, and at the core of this identity change, is that the MTV logo will no longer mutate to the whims of every and any designer and animator that gets his or her hands on it. No, the logo will now only appear in its original, black and white wordmark designed back in 1981. What’s funny though is that the designers never really intended for the MTV logo to be used as is, from the beginning it was seen as point of departure rather than a destination.

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In October of last year Brink’s Home Security, the 26-year-old consumer and residential division from security and protection company Brink’s, was spun off as its own company and went public. As part of the agreement, Brink’s Home Security would have three years to drop “Brink’s” from its name. This week the company announced its name change to Broadview Security.

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For most identity designers, companies like LogoWorks, LogoBee or whatever other cute name they acquire, are not to be taken seriously and are only seen as damaging to the industry by lowering (rather ridiculously) prices and quality. For offset and other specialty quality printers, companies like Vistaprint hold a similar position: cheap, fast, mediocre quality. If you have ever printed anything with a quality printer and anything with Vistaprint you know the difference but, let’s face it, most civilians (non-designers) people don’t — which is worth more than $400 million in 2008 revenue for Vistaprint, according to their 10-k. And Graphic Arts Online, lists it as the 40th top printer in North America.

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With over 40 stations covering all of Mexico, a handful across north of the border in the U.S., and over a dozen south of the border in Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama and Ecuador, EXA FM is one of the largest radio networks in Latin America. This month EXA presented a new identity that takes advantage of its amazing short name — anything with an “x” in it is awesome — to create a simple and bold ambigram. The final execution is a little wonky, I think the shapes (particularly the counterspaces) could have been better resolved but the design concept is exa-llent. (Sorry, couldn’t resist).

Thanks to Ramon M. for the tip.

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