New logo: Air Inuit

Air Inuit is a small Canadian airline that operates passanger and cargo services to Canada's Arctic regions. Having used an out-dated three-stripe logo for decades, it unveiled a new look in December. The new airplane liveries show three interwoven birds on the tailfin and the end of the fuselage.

Nunatsiaq Online published an image of the new livery on December 4. The new look is yet to launch on Air Inuit's website.

New logo: Detskiy

Detskiy (Детский), essentially meaning "Children's", is a Russian TV channel for kids between 6 and 12, available on cable and satellite, providing a popular alternative to Western children's channels. It was launched in 2006 and belongs to a company called "Content Union", which also owns some movie channels.

On December 20, the channel launched a new look, with a new logo. The rebrand also brings five new characters, intended represents the interests of its viewers, including Smelchak ("daredevil") who loves adventure and sports and Ymnik ("Egghead") who is fascinated by science. The character, the new logo and other design elements take the form of stickers that are put on various surfaces in station IDs and graphics.

The redesign was entirely created in-house. The company's other channels will allegedly also be rebranded this year.

New logo: Vietnam

Less than a year ago (January 26, 2011), the Vietnamese tourism administration unveiled a new logo to market the country to tourists. It was selected through a contest and featured a multi-colored star and the tagline "A different orient". It did however face widespread criticism and was eventually withdrawn.

Last week, the government agencies responsible for promoting Vietnam as a tourist destination unveiled another new logo, as well as a new slogan, "Timeless charm".

In the new logo, the V has been turned into a lotus flower with five petals in different colors. The five colors are said to represent different kinds of tourism, for example green for eco-tourism and orange for culture and history. The logo is credited to an artist named Tran Hoai Duc.

The new logo is to replace Vietnam's existing tourism logo, which was reportedly introduced in 2005 and features a torch and the tagline "The hidden charm".

New logo: Renova Energia

Tátil, the Brazilian agency that rose to worldwide fame after designing the logo for the 2016 Olympics, unveiled the results of another project last month. It was a new corporate identity for Renova Energia, a company building a large wind farm complex in Bahia, Brazil.

"The new logo symbolizes than a change: it indicates the arrival of a new positioning, and also reinforces the mission of Renova, which is to originate, develop, deploy and operate enterprises that respect the environment and the communities in which it operates. Thus, the new logo symbolizes pioneering, high levels of corporate governance and innovation. Renova Energia celebrates the achievements of the present, but with the eyes directed at the future, innovating more and more." - Tátil, translated from Portuguese

New look: AB1

AB Groupe is a French media group which owns several cable TV channels. During 2011, many of them have been given new looks, including the documentary channel Encyclo, the history channel Toute l'Histoire, the animal channel Animaux and the general entertainment channel RTL9. The last channel to get a new look was its flagship entertainment channel AB1. Some sources say the new look was launched in December.

The French motion design and production company Télévision created three break bumpers where different objects make up the letters P, U and B. "Pub" is an abbreviation of the French word for advertising, publicité, and is legally required to appear in front of commercial breaks.

New logo: NHL Network

NHL Network is an American cable network dedicated to coverage of the National Hockey League and ice hockey in general. The day after Christmas Day, December 26, the network islaunching a new look along with some significant new programming.

Compared to the more modern logo the network has used until now, the new logo is more aligned with NHL aesthetics, featuring the shield also used by NHL.

The sports branding boutique Studio1 were involved in the rebrand. The new network ID can be seen on their website.

Olympic bid logo: Baku 2020

The parade of logos to represent the different bids for the Summer Olympics in 2020 continues. Tokyo was first, and the second bid to reveal its bid logo became Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. This was done at a ceremony on December 21, featuring officials and "a spectacular flash-mob performed by more than 500 Baku youngsters".

At the same time, the bid's slogan, "Together We Can", was unveiled. The logo follows the same sentiment and is inspired by Azerbaijani carpets, where threads come together to form a fabric.

New logo: Blip

Blip.tv is an online platform for original web video series. This week, on December 20, it shortened its name to "Blip" and introduced a new fresh logo that had the added prestige of being designed at Chermayeff & Geismar.

New logo: AMC Networks

AMC Networks is a American media company that owns four cable channels, the most popular being AMC, home of Mad Men. The others are IFC, Sundance Channel and WE TV, that all provide programming for certain niche audiences. Until recently known as Rainbow Media Holdings and owned by the cable company Cablevision, it was spun off as a separate company on July 1 and began trading on NASDAQ. The motion branding agency Loyalkaspar were involved in the rebrand, and this week they posted a case study with some information about the work on their website.

Thw spin-off was approved in March, along with the namechange. The new look was unveiled at The Cable Show in mid-June.

New logo: YLE

YLE (an abbrevation of Yleisradio, meaning "Broadcasting") is Finland's national broadcaster. Yesterday, December 19, YLE revealed a new corporate identity, scheduled for launch in March 2012. The stated reason for this is "to help the Finns find and recognise YLE content". It is also said to be "a way to get closer to the Finns".

The new logo consists of a square with rounded corners and "YLE" written in lowercase with fashionable typeface. The colour is said to be a combination of the blue and green from the previous logo, but YLE also acknowledges that the new colour is "clearer and fresher" than the previous.

Most of the work on the new identity was done in-house at YLE, by a team lead by Tuire Nuolivirta. New typefaces were developed by Finnish typographer Saku Heinänen. The work is rooted in YLE's core values - Finnishness, reliablity, versatility, independence and respect for the human being.

YLE's TV channels will also launch new identites when the new corporate logo goes live in March. Much of the identity work isn't finished yet, so expect more news on this next year.

New logo: CTV News Channel

CTV News Channel, a Canadian cable news network associated with with the CTV network, launched a new studio and a new look yesterday, December 19. At the same time, it finally started producing its programs in high-definition.

The new look is brighter and more contemporary and is certainly an improvment compared to what was there before. The logo has been remodeled, but isn't that different to the previous one.

The set design was created by a Michael "Spike" Parks, the graphics seem not to be credited.

New look: Kingsmill

Kingsmill, the primary bread brand from the British bakery group Allied Bakeries, has introduced a new look, adopting a new consistent packaging design across its product range. All packaging now features a prominent "window" that allows consumers to see the bread.

Kingsmill's previous design was introduced in early 2007 and created by the British brand consultancy Vibrandt, now known as 1HQ. It broke a tradition of "regal" victoriana logos and imagery for a fresh, bold and modern design. The crown that was present in previous logos was dropped in favour of a sunburst that one might interpret as a crown. Later packaging design has been created by both 1HQ and Dragon Rouge.

The new design aims to provide consistency with a common design across the product range and is more an update than a break with the 2007 design. The new logo is a refreshed version of its predecessor with a lighter typeface.

"The new packaging has been designed to give the Kingsmill brand a more consistent look across the whole range. The look and feel of the original branding has been retained so that shoppers can easily recognise the brand on the fixture however the Kingsmill's logo has been updated and a large transparent window has been added to the pack to allow the shoppers can easily see the bread. "Just as consumers like to pick up a loaf to feel how fresh it is, they also want to see what the bread looks like," said Allied Bakeries brands director Will Ghali." - Allied Bakeries press release

There has been some weeding out in the vast sub-brand portfolio, which means the "Great Everyday" and "Love to Toast" sub-brands have been abolished.

New logo: State Farm

The major American insurance company State Farm, one of the 50 largest companies in the US, announced yesterday, December 15, that it was going to phase in a new corporate identity from January 2, as it celebrates its 90th anniversary. This replaces a symbol that has been essentially unchanged since it was introduced in the 1950s. The new corporate identity was created by Chermayeff & Geismar, who simplified the classic logo by removing the words and separating the ovals.

The current State Farm logo is one of the oldest corporate logos still in use by a major American corporation. According to American trademark designs it was designed in 1953 by a forgotten firm called Whitaker-Guernsey Studio and registered in 1956. It was also a simplification of a previous symbol that included a car, a cornucopia and a fireman's cap rather than the actual words "auto", "life" and "fire". In recent years, the logo has often been used with a wordmark, as seen in the example below.

New logo: Frosta

Frosta is a German brand of frozen food, including fish, vegetables and ready-meals, available in Germany, Austria and several East European markets. This spring, Frosta started introducing a refreshed logo and packaging design.

The refresh adds a green plate to the logo that includes a "purity seal" and a slogan that touts the product's lack of artificial ingredients. For the German market, the slogan is 100% echt Genuss ("100% real enjoyment").

The logo itself has given up many of its bevels and gradients. The logo-type that dates back to the 1960s has been modernised, keeping the classic lowercase O, but straightening up the tilted A and adding some rounded corners. The packaging has been overhauled to also highlight the natural ingredients.

New look: ORF 2

ORF 2 is the most watched TV channel in Austria, part of the state broadcaster ORF. Its schedule has a conventional European public service profile with culture, information, regional news and German drama, unlike ORF 1 which features lots of imported series and movies.

Yesterday, December 13, it was announced that ORF 2 is going to launch a new look on January 9, 2012, almost exactly one after its sister channel ORF 1, which launched a new look on January 8 this year, altering its name to "ORF eins" at the same time.

The new on-air graphics are based around a vertical "navigation bar" at the center of the screen. The bar splits the screen into two parts, generating a theme of duality inspired by the channel's name. This is most obvious in the idents and break bumpers that feature different sets of twins, ordinary people supposed to represent the audience, not models or celebrities.

A new colour scheme of red and white, Austria's national colours, dominates all graphics, emphasising the broadcaster's strong Autrian roots and content. The logo has received some adjustment to fit wit the new graphics, removing the gap between the 'ORF' and '2' boxes.

In addition to new audiovisual design for TV continuity, ORF 2 will also launch new intros for its regional news programmes.

New logo: Sallie Mae

Sallie Mae is the leading student loan organization in the United States. Originally created in the early 1970s as the government-sponsored Student Loan Marketing Association, it is now a private company called SLM Corporation. Much of the company's business is managing federally guaranteed student loans, and it faced a major blow last year when legislation was passed to allow the federal government to loan directly to students, bypassing middlemen like Sallie Mae.

On Monday, December 12, Sallie Mae started trading on NASDAQ, and introduced a new corporate identity. The new logo features almost the same typeface as its predecessor, but adds three archs. No rationale to exlain the logo has been provided, but one can easily read something aspirational into it.

New logo: Mentrum

Mentrum is a Dutch care organisation for people with complex psychiatric problems, part of the Dutch mental health organisation Arkin. In November, Mentrum also started offering treatment for serious addiction problems, and introduced a new visual identity, created by Millford Brand-id.

"The logo uses stacked stones. In different cultures stacks of cobbles are placed along the road to mark a route. Travellers add a cobble to the balancing stack making it grow, fall over and be built all over again. Mentrum too is working steadily towards a more balanced human being." - Millford

Millford has a long-standing relationship with Arkin. They were behind its corporate identity back in 2008 when the company was created through a merger, and would later create identities for other divisions.

New logo: Łódź

Łódź is Poland's third largest city. Last week, on December 6, it unveiled a new logo at a ceremony.

The logo is credited to one Justyna Żychalska and was selected through a compeititon. It features four letters inspired by the geometric alphabet created by avant-garde painter Władysław Strzemiński, who worked and is buried in Łódź. The new slogan Łódź kreuje, "Łódź creates", is included in the logo.

According to the mayor the new logo "strongly identifies the city with artistic achievements, without which there would be no modern art".

New logo: YouTube

A big web-related story at the beginning of this month was a major facelift for the video-sharing site Youtube. In addition to an overhauled page layout, it brought a refresh to the Youtube logo.

Where the previous "screen" had both a glare and a gradient, the new one only has a subtle, slightly darker gradient. This update seems directed at evolving and going back to basics, scaling back some of the fancy effects, just like previous Google-related logo changes. For example, the update of the main Google logo last year brought brighter colors and scaled back bevels and drop shadows, but didn't change the integrity of the logo.

The last time Youtube updated their logo was in 2006.

New look: France Ô

France Ô is a television channel operated by the French state television broadcaster France Télévisions. It is dedicated to programmes from the French overseas departments (French Guiana and several island territories in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans). It started out as the satellite channel from the overseas broadcaster RFO, but was renamed France Ô in 2005 and is now a nationwide channel available to most viewers in mainland France.

In September, France Télévisions introduced new looks for three of its channels, and France Ô soon followed. The new look was created by the French broadcast design agency Gédéon, which has a decades-long relationship with France Télévisions. They were also behind the identity for France Ô when it relaunched in 2005, as well as this years new look for France 3.

Channel IDs feature people on city walls interacting with the signature O and its circumflex. A colour band acts as a "shutter" to navigate between IDs and promos. A catchy musical theme was composed by La Plage Records. Gédéon also created new graphics for the news programmes on France Ô, once again with music by La Plage.

A montage of the new graphics can be seen on Gédéon's web site. A bunch of snapshots are available below.