Stop&Shop supermarkets in the U.S. Northeast, and Giant Foods in the mid-Atlantic, are both owned by Amsterdam-based Ahold. They keep their names but share a new symbol (a fruit boat?) and visual system. The gigantic advantage will come from a shared line of store brands, halving the SKUs while doubling their volume.

previously:

This Argentine company makes gas appliances (heaters, stoves), and now has a brandmark that expresses quality and professional competence (in place of mere cleverness).

previously:

         
                   
          

Two not-for-profit health plan providers in the New York region, combining in a new for-profit publicly traded company -- and a nice new badge. More to come. (It's not that they won't answer the phone, they actually deny they have a corporate phone number.)

previously:

         
+                       
          

It's actually the library of the nation, brilliantly signaled by this classic modern mark. The C&G testosterone is intact.  We will review more fully.

previously:
           

This is "Radio Televisión Española," Spain's public broadcasting corporation, nicely rebranded (by the Spanish firm Summa) to express movement and renewal, and to better bond with its units. For more, including an excellent launch clip, see the RTVE and Summa announcements. Another appropriate use of gradation, incidentally.

They buy, clean up and develop "brownfield" (severely polluted) properties, to create new communities -- which explains this brown-to-green gradation, and the centering of the symbol. The symbol scales up from thumbprint, to contour map, to globe -- or from personal commitment, to a better world. Clever.

Refreshment, and greening, of 100 'convenience' stores (snacks and groceries) in the New York region. Simply elegant. See the site.

previously:

Cosmetic refreshment of Brazil's largest airline, still struggling with the memory of July 2007, Brazil's worst crash. 
Aerodynamically improved letterforms? but then  defaced by the bird-scrawl.

The logo is the least of this dream assignment... to  design an obscenely beautiful resort experience, starting with the website.  Note the sound branding. And sigh with envy.

In Romania, why not take on Hertz (and Avis and Enterprise) head on? Here's aggressive brand creation by the rising Gabi Toth, with a universal dotted line that connects the entire visual system to its Happy brand mark.

In "the largest hotel revamp ever tried," the product is in renewal -- the branding needed to catch up. Successful solution.   (Jerry Kuyper: "A freeway overpass?" And why not?)

previously,

Well, here it is.  We'll review it in full, but not until client, consultant and designer have had an opportunity to tell their stories and "share details."

Good example of replacing a descriptive but dysfunctional name, "Hazard Communications Systems,"  with a sharp and short one, a clarion call, for this maker of safety signs and labels. CEO Goeffrey Parker said "We wanted to precisely reflect our expanded mission (...) as well as pull HCS out of alphabet soup."

previous logo:
     
                     

Clearly the blog star so far of '07, and others have written far more thoughtfully than I. I won't 'Review' it (event brand, not institutional) but for those who asked, my first impression:  like the graffiti that inspired it,  it's pure attitude, designed to intrude and degrade. ('london' and the rings, incidentally, themselves seem intrusive and unresolved... graffiti within graffiti.)  Agreed, it has energy, and the visual system (including font, palette and forms) could well be better than the mark.  Yet Brand Olympics feels at risk.

The world's leading electrical supplies distribution company, named Rexel, acquired a similar business named "GE Supply," chose to retain its brand independence, but could no longer use "GE." Landor coined this rather elegant "Ge"-preserving solution, and brightly wired it.

A significant freshening for this regional supermarket brand, #4 in the UK (after acquiring and converting the Safeway chain). Lightening it, opening it up, letting it breathe directly supports the current brand promise "Fresh for you every day."

previous logo:
     
              

A sweet name for this Romanian satellite TV service, a sub-brand of Romtelecom. The brandmark design is unusual in that wordmark and symbol work independently, not as a lockup, and in that the symbol is also a wordmark (having fun with letterforms!).

companion symbol:
     
       

see the case   

Under a new Director, Peter Dougherty, the Princeton University Press sought a more compelling brand, "a contemporary yet classic logo that symbolizes our commitment to publishing books that will stand the test of time," and got it from Ivan and Tom, who replaced its irrelevant Ionic capital with this P.U.P. monogram.  Go Tiger.

previous logo:

             
              

Sandy Weill merged Citi with Travelers in 1998, then spun out Travelers (sans umbrella) in 2002 , which St. Paul acquired in 2004 to become St. Paul Travelers, who began to phase out St. Paul in 2006, and repossessed the umbrella in 2007. Got it?

previous logo:

              

This new airline combines SN Brussel (formerly Sabena) with Virgin Express. The original thirteen runway lights (a nice idea) were subsequently changed to 14, for good luck.

previous logos:

This is retail, not corporate (Saks Inc. is unchanged as yet) yet is well worth noting, not so much for the renewed 1973 mark as for the system, inspired (per Michael) by 1970s collages by Yale design teacher Norman Ives.

previous logos:

  
           1997                 1973          

    

Previous logo:      
    

"Refreshment" is the story for this Virginia-based packaging and paperboard company. There's no fundamental change of equity... but a clear modernization of personality, with the functional benefit of a more legible typeface. (Chesapeake is hard enough to spell as it is.)
              

Launched September, 2006
Design: Porkka & Kuutsa (Helsinki)

Designed for the Asia-Europe Business Forum, on the occasion of a forum in Helsinki, then adopted as the permanent AEBF logo. The Western letters evoke Asian characters, carved in a 'chop' signature mark.

Small U.S. company with a global new product, and a company name not available overseas. They've got one now, presented with confident simplicity.

previous logo:

This change signals the creation of a new parent "Group" level, more diverse and one step further removed from the Film heritage. (Not so removed, however, as to change the name.) Landor's 1980 FUJI is now just a red chip.

1992 logo:

1980 logo:
              

Financial services... simpler, fresh and friendly. Mixed cases are in fashion.

Previous logo:

    

This is not a new MasterCard brand logo -- it is a new corporate identity, for the "principal operating subsidiary" of MasterCard Inc. previously named MasterCard International.  It has been widely critiqued as if it were the new brand mark. I will review it more fully when I have talked with its planners and designers.  

The logo for the 2006 World Cup  so embarrassed the German design community that 11 firms jointly posted alternatives. By far the best was #9,
by Klaus Hesse and Christoph  Zielke, using a series of  'splotch' pictograms . 

From music to baseball (the cap), lots of food, an aquarium, and a science museum, this place-mark evokes the fun of Baltimore's marvelous Inner Harbor.  (Designers may recall Unilever.)

Destination branding... taking Yukon Territory from 'part of old Canada' to its own place, with a more modern and exhilarating personality.
(For more see "Welcome to Brand Yukon")

Previous logo:

       

Feathers are in the air. This one brilliantly marks a new wi-fi service from Earthlink, just started in Anaheim CA (Philadelphia next) as the U.S slowly catches up.

Sprint was a long-distance and mobile provider, now merged with Nextel to form the pin-drop Sprint (see review). But it also had local phone businesses. They're spinning out as Embarq.

The former brand:

This event brand mark has proven so distinctive, functional and appealing that it must be noted and properly credited.

Launched:  February 13, 2006
Design:  TBD

"National" has changed its logo-name to NAB in hopes that NAB will become the everyday communicative name, a role for which "The National" was poorly suited in Australia as well as overseas.  From Melbourne, James Mansfield notes that "to nab is to steal."

We just saw this 2001 rebranding of a Finland-based leader in engineered fiber and  fabrics, and love its freshness.

Here's a nice appropriation of a nearly universal health symbol to help update one of Romania's largest pharmaceuticals, still state owned. The red cross, of course, is also a plus sign. Here, "a plus" not only means high performance; it also says "we're more than antibiotics."   see applications pdf

Hei translates as a friendly greeting, "Hi" with a little "Hey!" (according to correspondent Bogdana Butnar).  It's the new brand for the restaurant/shop at Rompetrol petrol stations, a brand we reviewed in 2003. The tag, "Your energy for a good day," is a build on Rompetrol's "Energy for life."

It's designed to be 'fresh and organic,' to suggest you're no longer at a gas station. (But by differing so sharply from the Rompetrol design, does it dilute the brand and clutter the site?)

Posted: July, 2005
Design:  Internal?

After stumbling with a couple of strained, abortive stabs at other kinds of spots (reviewed here in 2003 and 2002), Gateway quietly returned to a paler version of the box it had abandoned in 2002, the box that had surely helped build the brand.

Posted: May 16, 2005 (Launched c. Sept., 2004)
Design:  McGarry Bowen, NYC (also see InBev)

Not long ago Chase was a global banking power; now it's a local retail brand. Fittingly, its classic powermark (by Tom Geismar, 1960) has been quietly tweaked, the symbol now tucking into the wordmark for retail comfort. (JP Morgan Chase spokespeople treat this as a non-event, and won't discuss it.)

Launched: May 6, 2005
Designer: Gabi Toth

From Romania, Gabi Toth designed this motorsport brandmark for a UK-based Web seller of high-performance motorcycle and auto parts. Bull's-eye! It's fresh, dynamic and memorable.  Disclosure: Gabi, of course, is this site's designer.