Gold pulls out new identity

Gold is one of the most watched pay TV channels in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1992 and initially dedicated to archive BBC programmes it has shifted over the years to a schedule largely made up of comedies and sitcoms. Today, the channel is launching a new look, created by London-based DixonBaxi who worked with Gold over six months on everything from brand positioning to visual identity.

The new brand positioning was expressed as "Where Funny Takes You", and the new identity is built to convey "how funny makes you feel". The new logo is a "pulley" that folds out and is designed to act as an incentive to participation, you should want to tug at it. A similar effect is used for different words that appear in "statement bumpers".

Idents feature various jolly and optimistic shots of situations and objects, enhanced by thematic music. Everything is using a bright and happy colour palette, designed to reflect the brighter side of life.

Tradera trades new look

Tradera is Sweden's leading online auction site working on model similar to eBay. Since 2006, they have been a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay, but have retained an independent identity which was further developed earlier this year when a new look was introduced. It was created by Stockholm-based Bold.

Boild worked both on a new brand platform and on interface design. They deemed the old layout and logo cluttered and outdated. A new script logo was developed to stay emotive and relevant. The yellow signature colour was enhanced and become more visible. As part of the interface design, Bold also developed a cohesive set of new icons and other elements.

Discovery Fit & Health to become Discovery Life

One of Discovery Channel's many spin-off networks in Discovery Fit & Helth, a health and fitness network launched in the United States back in 2011 by merging two similar networks. The ratings for this network have been somewhat lacklustre and this week, Discovery has announced that Fit & Helth is going away. It will be replaced by a new network called Discovery Life which is dedicated to "profiling ordinary people in extraordinary situations" with "an unfiltered look at real relationships - from patient and doctor to husband and wife or parent and child". This translates to reality shows about emergency rooms, maternity wards, fitness and families with problems.

The logo above came with the announcement and has an air of placeholder over it. Discovery Life is slated for launch January 2015.

Pentagram begins new paragraph for Penguin Press

Penguin Press is an imprint of Penguin Random House launched in 2003 and mostly dedicated to quality non-ficton books. A month ago, Penguin Press introduced a new visual identity, developed by Michael Bierut at Pentagram, who was also behind the corporate rebrand of Penguin Random House earlier this year.

Bierut and his team set out to create a strong mark to replace the existing logo that failed to make an impact due a host of technical problems when rendered at small sizes. Working with the initials PP, the team found that they could be combined to look like a reversed version of a pilcrow, the paragraph mark. The typeface is Balto Light, with a slightly altered lowercase g.

Merging chip makers to become Eteris

Two of the world's leading makers of computer chips, Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron, announced last year that they would merge. On Monday, the companies announced that the new company would be named Eteris and revealed a new logo. Both the name and the visual identity were developed by Lippincott and its Japanese partner AXHUM Lippincott, working in both Santa Clara, California and Tokyo.

The name is an abbreviation of "Eternal Innovation for Society", reflecting Eteris' focus innovations to help its costumers. The accompanying symbol contains a green square representing the energy in its products and blue shapes extending from its to symbolise the power of innovation.

Cozy logo for Italian electronics chain Unieuro

Unieuro is an Italian home electronics retail chain with stores throughout the country. Last month, it started rolling out a new logo, created by Futurebrand Italia.

The new look is designed to be "warm and cosy" with a warm colour scheme and a logo that somewhat resembling a stylised heart.

New lifestyle channel FYI launches

Today, the United States gets a new cable channel in the form of FYI, replacing The Biography Channel, which launched back in 1999. FYI is a lifestyle network from A&E Networks, although it doesn't describe itself as such, instead saying they take a "modern spin on traditional lifestyle programming". In this case, "FYI" stands for "for your inspiration, for your imagination or for your innovation". The content is an optimistic mix of reality fare, including food, style, decorating and weddings.

The brand identity was developed by New York-based Loyalkaspar. The logo was designed to be bold and timeless yet modern and "reflect the conversational and inspirational nature of the FYI brand". The graphics package reflects the inspirational content, featuring different objects in monochromatic environments colour-coded for different shows. For a more authentic look, Loyalkaspar chose to work primarily with physical models instead of computers. The juxtaposition of various object is supposed to be eclectic yet beautifully composed. The package also employs fresh brush script typography with four type styles and one custom typeface.