New look: TV4

TV4 is Sweden's most watched commercial TV channel, founded in 1990. Yesterday, December 13, it introduced a new on-air graphics package.

The previous graphics package was introduced in September 2006 and has had a very long run. The idents featured presenters of TV4 programmes in a red backstage environment.

In the new look, TV4 reaches out into the Swedish reality. Different shots of Swedish landscapes have a cloud of dots in different shades of red flying through them. The dots are motif that TV4 has used in various forms for several years, and the new look was created as an evolution of that.

The new look was developed with broadcast agency Fireplace. Chimney Stockholm did post production and animation while music was composed by Magnus Frykberg and Gustaf Thörn.

New logo: Rebel

Rebel Sports is an Australian sporting goods retailer that bills itself as the largest such retailer in the country. In November it introduced a new brand identity, created by Australian branding agency Hulsbosch.

The name Rebel now has such high brand awareness that the word "sport" could be dropped from the logo. The new logo is a simple lowercase wordmark with a flipped E to signify healthy competition between individuals or against oneself. Using simple typography, a yellow-black-white colour scheme and monochrome imagery, the visual identity has been applied to all branded assets both instore and on advertising.

New logo: Serla

Serla is a Finnish brand for hygiene tissue, such as paper towels and toilet paper, owned by a company called MetsäTissue. Over time it has been extended to Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the Baltic states. This year, Serla introduced a refreshed brand identity along with new more environmentally friendly packaging and improved paper quality.

The new packaging is designed to improve shelf navigation and introduces a simpler logo that gives up the leaf texture of its predecessor. The "Serla squirrel" that is the brand's mascot still takes a prominent spot on the packaging.

New logo: Direct Énergie

Direct Énergie is a French power company, formed in 2003 after the energy market was opened up to private competition. In July this year it merged with another electricity company called Poweo. This presented the opportunity to introduce a new corporate identity, which was launched last week and was created by Dragon Rouge.

The new symbol is a circle, representing unity and togetherness. Its yellow colour is for warmth and optimism and the wordmark is set in rounded lowercase letters, which should convey proximity to consumers.

New logo: Comcast

Back in January 2011 when NBCUniversal became majority-owned by Comcast and introduced its new simple purple logo, there was plenty of uproar about the removal of the NBC peacock. In an unexpected move, Comcast itself has suddenly started using a new logo that prominently features the NBC peacock over a wordmark set in thin capital letters.

Becoming the symbol of a communications company marks a change in use for the peacock, that until now has mainly been associated with television and associated media. The new logo was unveiled on Monday, December 10. At the moment we only have the primary corporate brandmark, but there are several other Comcast-branded assets, such as the Comcast Sportsnets, that will presumably have to be updated as well.

New logo: Paraf

Last week, the large Turkish bank Halkbank introduced a new brand for its credit cards, until then branded as "Halkcard". The new brand was developed by Saffron Brand Consultants who were selected in competition with several other major brand consultancies. They developed both the name and visual identity.

Developed "as a tool that’s there when you need it most", the brand's name means "signature" in Turkish. This is reflected in the logo and background patterns, inspired by islamic art.

Logo round-up: November 2012

Here's a round-up of logos unveiled this past November. This is usually a slow month, but there were still a good crop of significant and interesting project that you can read more about below.