Empowering new identity for Black & Decker

The American company Black & Decker is one of the world leaders in manufacturing power tools, with a history going back over 100 years. Since 2010 they have been a part of Stanley Black & Decker after they merged with their strongest competitor, Stanley Tools. Today, January 13, the company has unveiled a new visual identity, created by Lippincott. The consultancy has previously created the corporate identity for Stanley Black & Decker at the time of the merger and for Stanley Tools last year.

The identity should convey Black & Decker's "unique ability to transform a daunting task into a feeling of accomplishment", as expressed by the brand essence "Powering People". Lippincott's work has included redesign of everything from logo and packaging to the tools themselves. They aimed to put focus on the products themselves and have therefore stripped off all kinds of unnecessary decorations. The logo is described as "simple, clean and powerful".

A contrasting T for Telemark

Telemark is a county in southern Norway near the capital of Oslo. Last Friday, the county officially launched a new destination brand. It was developed by Norwegian design agency Snøhetta and originally unveiled back in April 2013 (it has since received a slight revision).

The new common will be used for both tourism and other businesses. It is built on a concept of contrasts the complement and reinforce each other. Between coldness and heat, wet and dry, modernity and tradition. The new symbol is the letter T split in two halves, one blue as the the sea, the other is either white as snow or black. It will be used in conjunction with suspenseful, dreamy and inspiring imagery.

Military Channel to be renamed American Heroes Channel

The Military Channel is an American cable network dedicated to military history and warfare. Launched in 1998 as Discovery Wings, it has used its current name and format since 2005. It is one of the less successful networks in the Discovery family, and last week it was announced that it would be renamed "American Heroes Channel" on March 3. A logo was unveiled at the same time.

The unashamedly patriotic name signals a shift to more story-driven programming, "providing a rare glimpse into major events that shaped our world and the trailblazers and unexpected advocates who made a difference".

Dramatic triangles in new identity for Sky Movies NZ

Sky Movies is a suite of premium film channels broadcast by Sky Network Television, New Zealand's leading pay TV platform. It started out as a single channel in 1990. On November 1 last year it expanded from three to five channels and introduced a new visual identity, developed by Interbrand. A set of eighteen idents was created by Sydney-based animation studio Sixty40 with sound by Rumble Studios.

The refreshingly minimalist identity system extends on Sky NZ's existing identity which is based on triangles and the somewhat geometric Euclid typeface. In this case, triangles have been combined to form an M symbol on which all channel logos are based. In the idents, different moments or concept from different films or genres have been recreated using nothing but triangles. (They remind me somewhat of the exercises you had to do when you learned using shapes and composition in art class.)

Beiersdorf softens up its logo

Beiersdorf AG is a German company that owns several high-profile personal care brands, the most famous by far being Nivea which is available worldwide. This week, the company has introduced a new corporate identity, developed with Hamburg agency Justblue Design.

The old logo was reportedly introduced 35 years ago and contained both the full name in Helvetica Bold, the abbreviation BDF and four dots representing it then four business divisions. Two of those divisions have since been spun off. The new logo does away with the abbreviation and the dots, and builds on the old wordmark by rounding off some of its corners. The smoother wordmark should evoke care and trust. The colour is changed to Nivea's blue.

Lippincott forms an Allegion

The American industrial conglomerate Ingersoll Rand recently spun off its security technologies division which specialises in architectural hardware. It began trading as a separate company in early December, and a few months before this it had been rebranded as Allegion, a new brand developed with Lippincott within a short timespan.

The name Allegion alludes to allegiances, conveying close, collaborative and long-term relationships. The symbol is an A made up of panels that should remind you of architectural plans and blueprints.

A&E gets original

A&E is one of the most watched cable networks in the United States. Launched in 1984 as "The Arts & Entertainment Network" it was once known for documentaries and syndicated or imported series. In the last decade it has shifted its focus to reality series and original drama, with recent hits including Duck Dynasty and Bates Motel. A&E now positions itself as a premium entertainment network and the only cable network to only air original programming in primetime. To communicate this, the network has introduced the new tagline "Be Original", replacing "Real Life. Drama.". It launched on December 11 with a new graphics package, created by Troika.

With that much original programming, A&E can safely build its identity around the characters and environments featured in them. Characters from different series are featured heavily in all communication. Graphics also make use of objects and textures that reference the shows. Finally, each show has its own icon that is used as graphical shorthand for each show. Overall this creates a long list of visual elements for each show.