Possibly the last post on the evolving saga of Syfy as the channel officially switches identities today: London-based Proud Creative was the design firm responsible for creating the new Syfy identity. The victors of a four-way pitch, Proud Creative partnered with ManvsMachine for the onscreen graphics and with Chester Jenkins of Village to develop a bespoke type family. The results of the full package can be seen here. Will we have any converts that now like the new look?
On July 7, continuing our well chronicled saga, SciFi will officially become the much-dissed Syfy, and to help in usher the change, motion graphics firm Blind created a set of 15-second idents that blow away the old SciFi. As with most identities, the best part comes in the execution, and these idents are starting to give some much needed life to the Syfy logo.
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.
Landor has posted an entry on their blog gently letting people know that they were not responsible for renaming the SciFi Channel to Syfy after The New York Times credited them for it. Given the amount of negative reaction against the name I think it’s pretty fair for Landor to offer their official stance. It’s rare that a large branding firm can go on the record after the fact, so this is an interesting turn of events.
At its Spring upfront — basically when networks present their new programming, sell big chunks of advertising and announce any major changes — the 16-year-old Sci Fi Channel announced that on July 7 it will change its name and identity to Syfy. The reported driving reason for the change was the fact that “Sci Fi” was not something that the channel could own or copyright as it describes a genre that anyone else can use as a descriptor. But by changing its name to something that is phonetically identical yet spelled like a 3-year-old text messaging, it can become wholly ownable and mutated (pun intended) across different ventures like Syfy Games, Syfy Films and Syfy Kids.
