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Perfect gift for any designer! Try it online here.

For the obsessed designer working on his/her twentieth graphic guideline, and deciding on how to set rules to prohibit unauthorized reproductions/copying of their deliciously beautiful and perfect logo, Brand New has an article that you MUST read.

In interesting look at the new Aol. and all its controversies at FastCompany.

This is a crazy amazing site, with Olympic designs from the years, including tickets, medals, guidelines, mascots and whatever you can think of that Olympic designs. Wow!

In a case of branding going full-circle, there is news that Kellogg’s is planning to literally “brand” each and every flake of its cornflake, not using hot iron this time round, but laser etching. Preliminary research shows the story to be true, but really, fact is often stranger than fiction.

My most beloved brand or delicious milks and chocolates and biscuit staples has been rebranded! See more at brandnew

Delicious AND beautiful! Score!! Pantone Chips! via thoughtful

Beautiful directing and a pure and simple concept. Brilliant!

Pentagram recently followed up with an actually deck of cards, designed by 52 creative types, including Damien Hirst and Alexander McQueen. See more of the applications on the Pentagram blog or at the House of Cards site.

iStockphoto is hoping to do to logo design what it did to stockimagery, drive the price down to it absolute lowest and offer it to the masses. What do I, a professional logo design, have to say about that? Well, first this is not something new. Crowdsourced design is nothing new. (sadly) 99designs is one such bad example, where anyone can post a contest and get anyone else to design, basically, for free.

Would I ever take part in a “contest” like this? Never. Do I think there is a market for it? Of course.

There will always be that one person who does not appreciate design, but only see it as means to an end. The one thing I am hoping fervently for is that none of my clients are that “one person”. One can only wish.

“After 50 years of the iconic Futura typeface, IKEA has made a switch to… Verdana?”

How sad…Read more at idsgn.

Sign the online petition to revert it.

One of my favouritest banding agencies, Pentagram, just unveiled on their blog their latest work for Activision’s Guitar Hero franchise, worth a whopping $2.9 billion. It is always exciting to see how a company working for the largest banks and the most serious cultural institutions could use the same skills for a video game franchise and deliver results that are absolutely delightful. Read more of the process at Pentagram’s blog.

Made me smile. Brooklyn Fare via LovelyPackage.

Fresh Jive, a relatively well-known fashion brand has decided that enough is enough and is now removing all logos from its labels. New marketing ploy or a “grasping at straws” rehash?

Via Brand New

When Jean Louis Gassée (executive at Apple Computer from 1981 to 1990) was asked about his thoughts to the Apple logo he answered:

“One of the deep mysteries to me is our logo, the symbol of lust and knowledge, bitten into, all crossed with the colors of the rainbow in the wrong order. You couldn’t dream of a more appropriate logo: lust, knowledge, hope, and anarchy.”

Read the interview here.

Via Logoblink.

Beautiful and simple is really difficult to come by, so when someone does it so well, we can only do it justice by celebrating it! (or by buying loads of their merchandise). I love the blackness. I love the simple idea. I love the “pentagram-ness”. The cultish sign, not the design firm. I love the way its extended. See Brand New for more insights.

Read the rest of this entry »

Paul Rand talks logo designs in this 1991 interview, including his famous logo for Intergrated Business Machines.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

A vintage video interview with Walter Landor from 1977. I really loved the accompanying soundtrack!

Via Logoblink.com

Something about this combination just says so much about The Oak Room, the latest endeavor by Pentagram. See more delicious things here.

Collaborating with Kidrobort and Capacity, Cartoon Network’s new brand identity injects urban cool in the form of figures called Noods. Well played!

…and have the coolest business card ever!

Read more here!

My favourite branding site BrandNew has a great article up on WolfOlins latest work for “Living Proof“. I am really intrigued by the concept of, for the sake of this post, what I will now refer to as “Donut Branding”.

Is a donut still a donut without its hole? Can a donut hole exist without the donut around it? Can a brand exist without a logo? Can a logo exist without its brand?

HP has for a long time gone the opposite direction of how you should be selling computers. From the initial launch of their “The Computer is Personal Again” tagline, to the use of the controversial “Nightmare Before Christmas” fonts, HP has stayed true to their new brand proposition.This has also brought them into the realm of “Touch Computer”, a real great example of how a branding idea leads into product development. Whether they took over Dell as the largest PC manufacturer into world because of this new positioning we will never know for sure, but we do know that it stands out, is fresh and perfect for the craft-hungry hand-made new economy.

I have to say that I never was a real fan of any of their ads as it somehow all seems too gimmicky and rather sterile. The “Wake Up Your Feelings” website however hits all the right spots with amazin graphics, cute characters and beautiful score and voiceover. Will I buy a computer from HP? Not likely. Will I have them on my Apple as a desktop image? Yes please!

Part brand speak and part commentary on the financial doldrums that we are in. Coming from no one else but Wolff Olins. Did I happen to mention that I love their cutting edge work for their serious, corporate clients? Read it here.

For 2008, the Obama campaign was easily the most visible and most succesful branding campaigns of all time. It not only forced a rethink of political logos on the whole, but also showed how a simple and strong idea is often the best way forward. Would Obama have won the election without the logo? Possibly. But not with that much style and flair, for sure. Go here and read on about how this logo came about, and see the many that have been rejected. Lots of really strong ideas, and its always nice to see how an idea evolves and gets implemented.

An interesting writeup on how the famous hollywood logos came about.

More here.

Once in a while, somewhere, someone comes up with such a ridiculously good marketing idea that it makes you stand up, take note and be in awe.

Burger King decided that losing wallets with real cash inside will be a good way to sell burgers, and they are right! Along with cash bills, ranging fro $1 to $100 USD, in the wallets are also receipts, fake IDs and Burger King discount cards.

Brilliant!

read more here, here and here.

Compounding on a trend that Muji started a decade back, McDonalds is going the way of minimal/lack of branding by exhalting the new and fresh and strangely alluring.

Read more here.
Official site here.