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.