YouTube puts play button in main logo

YouTube has gone through many design changes in its twelve year history, including tweaks to its logo, changes to the play button icon and even an official font revealed this spring. But the core logo has remained unchanged. Until today. Kinda.

After several years using the wordmark with "Tube" enclosed by red screen interchangeably with the play button icon, YouTube has unified its brand identity. The play button will apparently always be present in the logo on all screen sizes, flanked by the wordmark when there's space or need. At the same time they've changed the logo colour from a specific hue (Hex #CD201F) to a pure screen red.

FutureBrand explodes Superliga Argentina

Superliga Argentina de Fútbol is the new name for the highest division in Argentinian football. The new name and accompanying visual identity were launched this month, the latter designed by FutureBrand.

This is part of a "rebirth" for Argentinian football, aimed at democratizing the clubs and the league. The logo is an "explosive" and rotating symbol that contains elements of both a planet and a football. The purple and blue color combination isn't used by any club and can therefore be used by everyone.

Leaf logo for life channel Canal Vie

Canal Vie is a French-Canadian cable TV channel dedicated to lifestyle programming for women, vie being the French word for "life". Last week, it launched a new look. As with most Canadian TV rebrands, it was developed in-house, in this case by the Bell Media Agency.

The channel's logo has always been an apple, usually in brushstroke form and since 2013 enclosed by an app-style rectangle. The new logo reduces this to a simple leaf, representing "the growth, development and renewal of lively and inspiring programming".

Logo round-up: July 2017

This July brought a handful of interesting and relatively high-profile redesigns for clients such as Tinder, SurveyMonkey, Sky Sports, Lation American bank BAC Credomatic and more than 30 others.

Smiling identity for charity Helpcode by FutureBrand

Helpcode is an Italian charity that provides education for disadvantaged children, mainly in Africa. It recently launched a new visual identity, developed by Futurebrand Italia.

The new logo features a symbol that is both a smile and two people, conveying how happy children are important to the future of their communities. It is supported by the tagline "The Right to Be a Child".

Bold and proud identity for Jersey Strong by Carbone Smolan

Jersey Strong is fitness gym in New Jersey with eleven locations. It was known Work Out World until last week when it launched a new name and visual identity, developed by Carbone Smolan Associates.

The previous generic name was swapped out for one that expresses the "pride, strength, and sense of community that defines the brand". The logo and other aspects of the identity programme use bold and strong typography to further convey this pride.

Laundry creates colourful party planet for MTV's flanker channels

The amount of music videos shown on Music Television (now known only as MTV) has famously declined over the last few decades. In many regions, MTV does however operate a series of so-called "Flanker Channels" that do mostly play music videos under names such as MTV Base, MTV Dance, MTV Classic, MTV Hits, MTV Rocks, MTV Live and MTV Music. The full range of channels is available in the UK, while the offering differs in other countries. The flanker channels were recently given new looks, created by Los Angeles-based animation and design studio Laundry in close collaboration with MTV World Creative Studio.

The brightly coloured graphics tie the flanker channels together through a common visual language that also allows them to affirm their own identities through genre-related imagery. The package was built around the idea of MTV as a "virtual reality planet where each sub-channel is a genre-specific continent – inhabited by party animals" that appear in the animations. The basic channel logos did not change, but were given new and more varied colours.

Portfolio archive: Amore, around 2004

Adobe's recent announcement that they were ending support for Flash caused me to look through a bunch of old Flash-based portfolio sites before they become inaccessible. One of those came from the Swedish package design agency Amore and I though I'd share some elements from it here for posterity.

The portfolio page was from late 2004 and features work produced before that, mostly from the early to mid-'00s. This includes two can designs for Cider and Liten Ljus Lager that have become modern classics for their graphic simplicity.

ArianeGroup launches new brand by Carré Noir

ArianeGroup is a joint venture between Airbus and the French company Safran with activities in aerospace and defence, it's most famous product probably being the Ariane rocket launchers. In was known as Airbus Safran until last May when the name was changed to take advantage of the company's most famous product. The rebranding effort was headed by Carré Noir.

The new identity wants to transform Ariane from a primarily technical and scientific enterprise to a more human one, while conveying the company's mission as "space enablers". This is done through an iconic symbol of space communication, a satellite orbiting a planet, which in this case is one of Ariane's launchers orbiting earth.

Root Sports rebranded as AT&T SportsNet by Troika

The telecoms giant AT&T is slowly building a media empire through DirecTV and the ongoing purchase of Time Warner. As part of its integration, many DirecTV properties have had the AT&T name and logo slapped on them. Last month the turn had come to Root Sports, a set on regional sports networks owned by DirecTV that were renamed AT&T SportsNet. The new look was designed by Troika, who also created the Root Sports brand back in 2011.

The new look is built around a concept called "Fan Connection" with heavy focus on home teams in a new more realistic graphics package. The logo has been designed to fit with the AT&T brand, including its signature blue colour.

Logo for Google X spin-off Dandelion spreads warmth

Dandelion is a new company recently spun off from X (formerly Google X), the experimental subsidiary of Google/Alphabet. It offers geothermal heating and cooling to homeowners in north-eastern United States. The company was announced on July 6, and the logo above above was a part of the announcement.