2019 in review

To mark the end of another year, we summarise the logos introduced in 2019. From a list of more than 700 entries, here's a selection of more than 100 noteworthy and interesting projects.

Logos of the 2010s: Finance & insurance

In our series of the logos of the 2010s, we've arrived at the logos for finance and insurance. The early part of the 2010s was heavily affected by the reverberations of the financial crisis that saw many institutions being toppled. In the United Kingdom, the Royal Bank of Scotland was broken up, reintroducing many brands. In Spain, almost all savings banks were merged into larger entities. But this was also a decade were innovation in payment systems reached the masses.

Logos of the 2010s: Airlines

In our retrospective on the logos of the 2010s, we move on another tangible subject, namely airlines and airports. These were troublesome years for the airlines, who suffered from thinner margins and combatted this by merging with one another. As a result, many of the more notable rebrands from the last decade were the results of mergers.

Logos of the 2010s: Specialty television

In our second and final instalment on logos for TV channels in the 2010s, we move on to speciality channels, mostly the ones associated with cable and satellite. One of the most substantial changes in branding during the '10s has been the decreasing importance of television. We started the decade just as the idea of launching new TV channels started dying off and by the middle of the decade we actually started seeing relatively significant broadcasters shutting down less important TV channels.

The Branding Source had quite extensive coverage of TV branding in the beginning, publishing special TV logo round-ups and special summaries of motion branding. You'll notice that most of the creative rebrands here are from the earlier part of the decade. Over time, TV rebrands started becoming less creative, with changing brand positions as the entire industry shifted from growth to managed decline. So, here's a summary of what's probably the last decade in TV branding.

Logos of the 2010s: Broadcasting

As we are approaching the end of another decade, The Branding Source summarises a decade of rebrands in a series of post with the most interesting and noteworthy new logos of the decade. We'll do this based on topics and genres, starting with television and radio.

The Branding Source had quite extensive coverage of TV branding in the beginning, publishing special TV logo round-ups and motion branding summaries. The huge number of TV brands means there is enough content to fill two posts. The first is about the big national TV brands, the public broadcasters, national commercial networks and general entertainment channels.

Logos of Dan Reisinger (1934–2019)

Israeli graphic designer Dan Reisinger passed away recently. Born in present-day Serbia, he moved to Israel after the war and became one of the country's leading graphic designers and a member of the AGI. He gained distinction as a poster designer, but was also a prolific designer of trademarks and corporate identity programmes. Among these were a series of posters and logos for the Maccabiah Games.

To mark his passing and to preserve some content from his soon-to-be-inaccessible Flash website, here's a selection of Reisinger's logo and trademark designs. All dates are according to Reisinger.

Logo round-up: October 2019

Here's another massive logo round-up, featuring almost 70 new logos! This includes a predictably controversial Olympic logo and a refresh for the Nectar rewards scheme. It has been a particularly busy month for Wolff Olins, who are featured four times on this list.

Logo round-up: September 2019

Here's the long-awaited logo round-up for September and it is probably one of the biggest ever, with around 60 new logos included. That's not surprising, as September was fairly eventful with new logos for huge brands like Twitch, Yahoo, Lay's and not least Volkswagen.

From 1999: Gifts.com by Landor

Gifts.com was an early e-commerce website, built around the idea that it would help you pick out gifts. It was launched in autumn 1999 by The Reader's Digest Association and something called StarTek. They contracted the full Young & Rubicam network to handle all aspects of the venture's publicity, including Landor Associates who designed the brand identity.

The site apparently launched in October 1999 ahead of the holiday season. A big TV ad campaign featured a "lab" were people tried out new gifts in humorous ways, ending with the tagline "Just the perfect gifts".

Like many other early e-commerce ventures, Gifts.com was never profitable to Reader's Digest who put Gifts.com and its parent company Good Catalog up for sale in 2002.

StepStone steps away from dot-com stones

StepStone is a recruitment company based in Germany and active in most European countries. Towards the end of 2018, they introduced a refreshed identity. This is one of those cases where the story behind previous logo is more interesting than the new one.

StepStone was originally founded in 1996 in Norway as JobShop, but quickly gained significant investments in the dot-com boom and relaunched itself in spectacular fashion in 1999 as StepStone. The new name and corporate identity was developed by Landor Associates and was typical of new company launches at the time with an aspirational name and a logo featuring three-dimensional stone suspended mid-air. It was accompanied by a huge advertising campaign and an IPO some months after that.

StepStone survived the dot-com crash, but was acquired by Axel Springer in 2009. The floating stones remained, but were eventually turned monochrome.

Logo round-up: August 2019

The big branding news from back in August was that the Android operating system finally grew up, left the desert-based version names and cleaned up its logo. Two major American retailers, Macy's and Nordstrom, also cleaned up their logos, but in less perceptible ways. There's about 40 more new logos in this round-up, many for nationally recognised brands.

New logo for merged Danish furniture store Ilva

Two Danish furniture store chains, Ilva and Idemøbler, merged at the end of August under the Ilva name. Before the merger, Ilva had been the name of handful of larger stores, while the Idemøbler chain consisted of a larger number of smaller neighbourhood stores.

While the merged chain uses the Ilva name, they did introduce a sleek new logo. It is usually featured inside a circle.

Fresh and sustainable chicken branding for Kronfågel

Kronfågel is Sweden's leading provider of chicken meat, founded in 1970. Last month, it launched a refreshed visual identity.

The new logo and packaging launches with a campaign focused on sustainability, positioning chicken as meat with lower climate impact. The logo features a lighter font and a more prominent position for Kronfågel's cutlet frill symbol.

Confluence of cooperation in new Schibsted logo

Schibsted is one of the larger traditional media groups in Norway with a history stretching back 180 years. After buying two of Sweden's largest daily newspaper it also has substantial presence in that country, as well as investment in online classified ad platforms in numerous other countries. Last month, on September 11, it launched a new corporate identity, developed by Bold Scandinavia.

The new identity is a clean break with the previous logo, featuring a simple wordmark and an S that can work on its own as a symbol. The symbol features dots or pixels that "create a confluence, underlining that cooperation is one of Schibsted’s greatest opportunities".

R U noticing the change in the UR logo?

UR, short for Sveriges Utbildningsradio ("Swedish Educational Broadcasting"), is one of Sweden's public service broadcasters. It is the smaller of the three public broadcasters with a special remit to provide educational programmes. Over the last couple of months it has rolled some new corporate graphics with a refreshed logo.

The UR logo has always been a simple and friendly ligature and was last updated in January 2001 (by the agency Dallas Sthlm). The change in the new logo is barely noticeable, with a slight extension of the leg in the R. A slight change, but the predecessor feels quite awkward once you've seen the new one.

With the refreshed logo comes a few gradient-filled graphics. The new look had been previewed over the last few months, but was rolled out more seriously in late August and September, probably to start the autumn semester. No credit on the new design.

Logo round-up: July 2019

A smaller, but nice crop of new logos from July, including the French football league, several non-profit foundations and Russian telco MTS.

From 1999: Discovery Health by Pittard Sullivan

In our series on forgotten rebrands, we take a look at the relaunch of the fledgling cable network Discovery Health in 1999.

Discovery Health had first launched as a digital channel in 1998, but Discovery felt the concept had greater potential as a basic analogue network. With a serious increase in distribution and hundreds of millions spent on programming, they retooled and relaunched the network completely in August 1999.

It may have been an analogue TV network, but this was 1999 so it needed to have a serious Internet connection. Major investment was put into the website which presented a reported 2.5 million pages. As a result, the overall look of the network is very "connected" and informative.

The agency in charge at the time was Pittard Sullivan, the leading broadcast design agency of the '90s. The work at Pittard Sullivan was led by Curt Doty, a veteran of broadcast design.

Red Bee creates geometric look for TV5 Finland

TV5 is the flagship entertainment channel of Discovery Networks Finland, launched in 2008 and then going on to become reasonably popular. Last month, on August 1, it launched a completely new logo and graphics package, created by Red Bee Creative.

Up until now, the Finnish TV5 has used the logo and graphics of its Swedish equivalent, Kanal 5, which is owned by the same company. The new logo keeps the successful 5-in-a-circle theme, but gets a new numeral.

The new '5' is composed of a circle and two rectangles, with minimal adjustment. The geometric theme echoes throughout the design, with graphics featuring squares and rectangles.

Delirious rebrand for Canal J

Founded in 1985, Canal J is not only the oldest kids TV channel in France but also one of the older non-terrestrial TV channels overall. On August 23, it introduced new graphics and a refreshed logo, created by motion branding agency Motionfanclub. That agency was also behind the previous logo, introduced in 2015 and covered here at the time.

According to Motionfanclub, the new graphic package builds on "dynamic youth" for kids approaching adolescence. "Sport, digital delirium and complicity is on the programme", according to my French translation.

A subtler S for Sony TV channels

Sony Pictures Television is the broadcasting arm of Sony Pictures, owning a variety of channels in Asia, the Americas and Europe. Some are operated under names like AXN and Animax, others use the Sony brand. At the moment, new branding is being rolled out for the Sony channels in Latin America and the United Kingdom.

One thing that makes these new logos interesting, is the pedigree of the one they replace. Sony's first major venture into international television was the launch of Sony Entertainment Television in 1995. For this, they contracted Chermayeff & Geismar to come up with symbol. C&G's solution featured an S partly visible through a box. In the following couple of decades, this symbol has been through a large amount of variations and treatments, being used for an eclectic mix of entertainment channels in India and other parts of Asia as well as Latin America, the United Kingdom and other areas.

The new logos are app-style squares with rounded corners, featuring a curve as a subtle reminder of the old S. They were first revealed in January 2018 for the streaming service Crackle, which Sony ironically sold earlier this year.

The new logos were announced for the UK channels on July 24 as part of a major relaunch that will see Sony reconfigure their offering into three movie channels (Sony Movies, Sony Movies Action, Sony Movies Classic) and one entertainment channel (Sony Channel). A couple week later, on August 12, Sony Channel in Latin America adopted the same logo, although that appears to be a straight rebrand. The UK launch is scheduled for September 10.

Crème Bonjour fresh cheese gets refreshed

Crème Bonjour is a brand of fresh cheese in Sweden and Finland owned by Upfield (formerly Unilever). Recently, probably in Spring 2019, it launched new look with a refreshed logo.

As is the trend, the logo and packaging has become a lot cleaner, with better matching letterforms and less clutter. The new look has been in use at least since April 2019, possibly longer. No design credit at the moment.

Logo round-up: June 2019

June was somewhat busy this year when it came to rebrands, introducing refreshed identities for both the Spanish and Croatian posts, the Firefox web browser, a less juicy Jamba and numerous others around the world.

Brazil's Telecine channels get new logo

Telecine is a suite of movie channels in Brazil, offering the latest blockbusters some months after cinemas. In late July, Telecine launched a new logo.

Telecine's previous identity was a bit fractured with the main logo identifying the package as a whole with logos for the individual channels in a completely unrelated style. The old main logo was a classic designed by Gédéon and had been in use since the '90s. The channel logos were introduced in 2010 and refreshed later on.

The new brand is part of strategy to make Telecine more technology-driven. The graphics make great use of a set of vivid colours.

Azercell drops Telia branding

Azercell is one of the leading mobile operators in Azerbaijan. About a month ago, on June 21, they unveiled a new brand identity.

Azercell used to be owned by Swedish-Finnish telco TeliaSonera and adopted the common Telia symbol in 2011, along with the entire group. After numerous scandals appeared around the acquisition of the mobile licenses in Telia's emerging markets, they decided to exit the South Caucasus region and sold Azercell in 2018. The new logo drops the Telia symbol to mark that Azercell enters a new chapter as an independent company.

WarnerMedia unveils new HBO Max service

In the ongoing "streaming wars", WarnerMedia (previously Time Warner), unveiled their big offering last week. It will be called "HBO Max". HBO already has a reasonably successful streaming service in HBO Go/HBO Now, but this throws everything else that Warner owns in, as well as original programming, to create a broad service that can rival Netflix.

Warner and HBO also own Cinemax, which probably helps with trademarking the name. They also already owned the URL www.hbomax.com, which used to be the press room for HBO and Cinemax.

The logo and what little other applications there at the moment use a blue-purple-red gradient. The actual letterforms have some potential for versatile animations.

Roger reframes the world for Discovery Channel

Back in April, Discovery Channel somewhat quietly rolled out a completely new logo after a decade of tweaking the one they introduced in 2008. The new logo and graphics package were developed by broadcast design agency Roger, who recently presented their case study on the Discovery project.

Discovery wanted to keep D-globe concept that had become quite established, but allowed an otherwise redesigned logo. Roger found that the continents in the globe provided enough whitespace to substitute the lack of 'stem' in the new D. For the graphics, they came up with the "D-frame, a rectangle with on curved corner that is used to hold imagery and information.

L3Harris unite in the Nexus

Harris Corporation and L3 Technologies, two American technology companies mostly active in surveillance and government contracting, merged recently to form L3Harris. Their new common symbol launched on July 1.

The new symbol is known as the "Nexus" and also exists in three-dimensional form outside the combined corporate headquarters in Melbourne, Florida. It symbolises L3Harris' "innovative spirit, conveying the technology connectivity, networked intelligence and mission solutions we bring to our customers".

From the 80s: Brazilian shoe store Arezzo

Here's a somewhat random vintage project: A complete design programme for Brazilian women's shoe brand Arezzo. Arezzo was founded in 1972 and probably received this redesign some time in the '80s (possibly the '70s). The agency behind was P & B Comunicação e Promoção, an agency based in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais.

The design programme was very fashionable in the '80s, with deconstructed lettering and pastel colours. The double-Z in the logo stands out as a neat and unusual solution.

Contemporarily traditional Stockholm/Åre 2026 bid logo by Happy F&B

A few days ago, the International Olympic Committee chose Milano/Cortina to host the 2026 Winter Olympic Games. However, if the applicant was to have been chosen solely based on the quality of the logo, the games would have gone to their only competitor, Stockholm/Åre in Sweden.

The Stockholm/Åre logo and identity was developed by Happy F&B. They created a treatment of the year 2026 inspired by traditional Swedish ornamental painting (kurbits). The aim was to "position Sweden as a forward-thinking country of longstanding traditions".

Not too long ago, the competition to host an Olympic Games used to be tough, with lots attention being given to the candidature logo. In the case of the Stockholm/Åre logo, it appears to have been rolled out slowly and quietly. I appeared on social media mid-January and had possibly been used elsewhere before that, but apparently didn't get a formal announcement.

Logo round-up: May 2019

May brought several rebrands, of which the new Sears and BT were probably the most talked about. There's apparently also some sort of trademark agreement expiring for the Warner Music Group, because both their music label Warner Records and their publishing arm Warner Chappell dropped the classic WB shield.

W creates moving traingle for insurer MAIF

Mutuelle d'assurance des instituteurs de France, generally known by the acronym MAIF, is an insurance company in France. On June 3, the company revealed a new visual identity, developed by the agency W.

The previous logo was developed by Carré Noir in the mid-90s. The 2019 redesign keeps the red triangle, but makes it more irregular and dynamic. According to W, this was done to make a mark that was "in motion", connecting to the movement roots of MAIF.

Seenk creates empowering identity for QuiToque

QuiToque is a French service that delivers pre-packages groceries to people's homes, with suggested recipes. It was recently purchased by grocery giant Carrefour. In mid-May, the company launched a new visual identity, developed by Seenk.

QuiToque adopted its previous name in February 2016 (covered here at the time). The new joyful and simple identity portrays how QuiToque makes preparing food more fun and varied. Seenk also wanted to convey a message of empowerment, "The power to eat well". The bare-bones logo features the letter 'I' being replaced by varioud types of produce (typically a carrot).

Four Canadian TV channels rebranded under the CTV banner

Niche TV channel brands have slowly been dying off in the last couple of years as many TV channels are either shut down or rebranded using a parent company name. Earlier this year, we noted that TV4 Sweden had given its smaller channel generic logos. Last week, on June 5 at the Bell Media upfronts the demise of four major Canadian cable TV channel brands was announced.

The Comedy Network, sci-fi channel Space, drama channel Bravo and lifestyle channel Gusto will all be rebranded as CTV channels on September 12. Their new generic names will be CTV Comedy Channel, CTV Sci-Fi Channel, CTV Drama Channel and CTV Life Channel. New logos, all based on the same template, came with the announcement.

Gusto was introduced in 2016 (replacing music channel M3). The other have been a big part of Canadian cable TV for several decades, all launching around 1995-1997. Their previous logos have all been covered here.

Logo sleuthing: Architectural symbol by Chermayeff & Geismar

Rich Baird, who runs LogoArchive and BP&O, recently sent out a tweet calling for confirmation on a mysterious symbol apparently designed by Chermayeff & Geismar for the American Institute of Architects (AIA). He found the logo in an old logo compilation book and there are a few instances where logos have been wrongly attributed in these books. This prodded me to do a bit of logo sleuthing.

There have been multiple retrospective books published about Chermayeff & Geismar, which means their work feels quite well preserved for the future. But to my knowledge this possible AIA logo hasn't been included in these books. Its not in the rare spiral bound portfolio they published in 1979, not in the more common TM book from 2000 nor in Identify from 2011.

The oldest record I have of this logo being created is from a special issue of the Japanese design magazine Idea, published in May 1971. The issue highlighted prominent American identity designers and included a profile on Chermayeff & Geismar as well as an extensive look at their portfolio. Besides that, the symbol doesn't appear in any of the contemporary magazine profiles on C&G I have been able to access.

Logo round-up: April 2019

At long last, here's the logo round-up for April 2019. Ikea made a barely noticeable change to their logo that many wanted to point out. There were also more substantial changes for brands like Discovery Channel, Staples, Zillow, Axel Springer and BBVA.

Mer gets more straight

Mer is a classic soft drink in Sweden, nowadays owned by The Coca-Cola Company but still largely a local brand. In April, it launched an ad campaign featuring new packaging and a refreshed logo.

In the last couple of decades, Mer has been using a logo at a "dynamic" arch, as seen in the previous design from 2015 (designed by Elmwood and covered here at the time). This redesign straightens that up to a form more reminiscent of the brand's older design from the '60s.

Mer means "more" and the redesigned was launched with an ad campaign based on the slogan "Dare to be More", focusing on individuality.

Sparkling Ice gets natural redesign

Sparkling Ice is an American brand of "sparkling water", carbonated water with fruit flavours. Recently, the brand launched a refreshed look.

The brand was launched in 1992 with award-winning package and identity design from Hornall Anderson Design Works. This was an early project from Hornall Anderson that helped establish a reputation of innovation for the Seattle-based firm.

The latest rebrand sheds to Sparkling Ice logo that had been in use since the beginning.

The new look was officially announced through a press release in January, but had been slowly rolled out at least since April 2018. No credit for the new design.

From 2016: Uppdrag Granskning by Dallas

Not quite new, not quite old, but I've taken it upon myself to highlight some noteworthy projects that haven't really gotten much attention elsewhere. This one is a redesign of Uppdrag Granskning, the main investigative current affairs programme from Sveriges Television, the Swedish public broadcaster. It was given a new look back in 2016, created by Dallas Motion Agency.

Insinööriliitto refreshes a classic

The Union of Professional Engineers in Finland, or Insinööriliitto in Finnish, is the professional association for engineers in Finland. It was founded in 1919 and thus celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. Recently, probably in January, the association revealed a refreshed logo.

The new logo appears to have been introduced without much fanfare, with the Facebook page being updated on January 24. No credit or rationale.

This logo is mostly notable because its predecessor was fairly old and classic. It was designed by Olof Eriksson and was included in some of the popular compilations of logos that were published around the early '70s. They date it to 1962.

Logo round-up: March 2019

A late, but substantial logo round-up for March 2019. This one includes over 60 new projects from around the world. This includes new logos for the Irish postal service, food conglomerate Mars, the Norwegian railways, ad agency DDB and many others.

Strong and simple design for ORF1

ORF1 is one on the main channels from Austrian broadcaster ORF. Yesterday (April 26), it launched a new logo and visual system. It was designed by Norwegian design agency Bleed and local agency Partlhewson. Bleed has previous experience designing for their national broadcaster NRK.

ORF1 differs from ORF2 in that it skews a bit younger and it somewhat more entertainment-oriented. The new look is heavily built around the simple new logo, created out of four stacked squares. The logo swipes in and out on screen, as does most of the flat graphics, all to great effect. The varied programming genres are defined by different colours. A custom typeface, called Eins Sans, was also created.

Transparent refresh for Aqua d'Or

Aqua d'Or is a leading brand of mineral water in Denmark, now owned by Danone. Back in 2016 the brand was redesigned by Kontrapunkt. Back in February 2018, the brand was redesigned once again, also by Kontrapunkt. Kontrapunkt has since moved Aqua d'Or and its other packaging clients to a sub-agency called Everland, which has continued developing the brand as the product line expanded.

The 2016 redesign cleaned up Aqua d'Or, making it more attractive with a new bottle. The new logo keeps the clean blue circle as its label, but introduced new typography where the ascender of the lowercase Q has cleverly been used as the apostrophe in "d'Or".

From 1999: Court TV by Lee Hunt Associates

Founded in 1991 to air non-stop courtroom proceedings, Court TV rose to prominence in the sleazier period of the '90s where numerous trials dominated American news. It would then spend a decade trying to get away from that reputation to feature more documentary-style programming, before finally changing its name to truTV.

One of the first attempt to broaden the network's remit was the 1999 rebrand by Lee Hunt Associates that saw the introduction of the thumbprint logo. The project was headed by creative director Bob English and designer Kylie Matulick.

In addition to the thumbprint logo, the team also created a series of idents based on still photography, with knives, guns and other crime scene objects for the night-time programming and scales and law books for the courtroom proceedings during the day.

TV4 brings niche channels in line

Sweden's largest commercial TV channel TV4 streamlined its offerings last year, standardising the logos of its main channels. (Read more about it here.) This streamlining was recently applied to TV4's niche channels for documentaries, films and classic TV, namely TV4 Fakta, TV4 Film and TV4 Guld.

These three channels used to have their own identities, with differently shaped logos. Now, they all use the main TV4 logo with simple descriptive text. TV4 has scaled back its investment in niche channels and closed down some underperforming ones recently, and this logo change helps reinforce that strategy.

Logo round-up: February 2019

The last weekday of March - here's the logo round-up for February! This includes a huge selection of more than 50 projects from around the world. This included another rebrand for the Accor hotel chain, an interesting solution for Channel 4 UK's on-demand service, a new logo for QVC, and many more.

Bright and simple look for Radio Norge

Radio Norge is one of Norway's two national commercial radio networks. (The other one is P4, whose rebrand we covered here back in 2014.) In February, the Radio Norge rolled out a new logo.

The old logo is a slightly simplified version of the logo used when the network adopted its current name in 2008. It featured a weird shape inspired by traditional Norwegian folk art. The new version goes in a decidedly "cheaper" utilitarian direction with the name in bright red on an angle. It is saved by the execution of related visual elements with clean backgrounds in fresh colours.

Academic Work by Identity Works

Academic Work is a Swedish staffing firm, focused on recruiting young professionals. Bakc in November, it launched a new visual identity, developed by Stockholm-based Identity Works.

Academic Work has grown since significantly its foundation, starting and acquiring new staffing companies. This necessitated a new identity that could united several companies. Identity Works created a new AW monogram made up of lines that grow in number, "representing the ambition with people working at Academic Work". They also clarified the green colour and developed icons and striped background patterns.

Nextdoor gets its Wojo on

Wojo is French service operated by Bouygues Immobilier and Accor that provides flexible shared office space. It was known as Nextdoor until last week, when it launched a new name and identity, created by the agency W.

The new name is a combination of the English words "work" and "mojo". The rebrand aims to position as "the European reference in shared workspaces".

Laundry creates clean new brand for Turner Ignite Studios

Turner Ignite Studios is a new in-house studio from Turner Ignite, the branded content arm of Turner Broadcasting (CNN, TBS, TNT, Adult Swim, truTV etcetera). Back in February it launched its brand identity, created by design and animation company Laundry.

From 2006: Discovery Times by Trollbäck + Company

Discovery Times was a joint-venture between Discovery Communications and The New York Times Company. Launched in 2003, it tried to bring the straightforward storytelling of The Times to cable TV. The channel managed to become a platform for high-quality documentaries, but the newspaper didn't feel it made sense for them financially and chose to exit the venture in April 2006.

Also in 2006, the channel launched a fresh new look, created by Trollbäck + Company. The agency went for a very simple typographic look with "stripped-down graphics system", reflecting The Times' "straightforward approach to news storytelling".

Discovery didn't manage to run a high-brow documentary channel on their own, so in 2008 they replaced it with the true crime channel Investigation Discovery, which went on to become one of the company's most lucrative global brands.