Video game developer Santa Monica Studio unveils window logo

Santa Monica Studio is a videogame developer in Santa Monica owned by Sony Computer Entertainment and the developer of many games for the Sony Playstation console. Yesterday, it presented new visual identity.

As opposed to its predecessor and many other game developer logos, the new one is a bit more structured. It is centred around a simple flexible symbol that can be used as a window for different games.

Oxygen gets very real

Oxygen is an American cable TV network primarily targeted at women. It was launched back in 2000 and had Oprah Winfrey among its co-founders. Today, it is a property of Comcast/NBCUniversal who this week introduced a new logo for Oxygen.

The new logo is scheduled to launch on October 7 and comes with the tagline "Very real", describing a slate of new programming built around reality genre with programmes featuring "authentic, proudly imperfect and diverse characters with stories that are culturally relevant for young, modern women".

Logo round-up: June 2014

Nescafé, Penguin Random House, the country of Poland, the Hague and several other entities revealed new logos this past June. Here's a round-up the most important among them.

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.