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.