Logo round-up: August 2020

There were a fair amount interesting logo changes in August, including the capital of Germany, Dave & Buster's, the largest public TV station in the U.S. and Belgium's public broadcaster.

Another change in August was Disney renaming their television studios remove their associating with Fox. This included resurrecting the name "Touchstone Television" for the Fox 21 studio. A few weeks ago, Disney announced that Touchstone Television (formerly Fox 21) was to shut down, probably making this the first time the logo round-up includes a logo that has already been retired!

This will be the last round-up published this year, the plan is to return with the September edition in January.

Logo round-up: July 2020

Australia revealed it's new country brand back in July, which is always a source of controversy. Other big stories were the Royal Academy of Music and the new look for TV production company Banijay following its mega-merger with EndemolShine.

Logo round-up: June 2020

The most discussed logo back in June was the new pinwheel symbol for Google Photos, even though it's just part of an ongoing rollout of Google's design scheme. We also got new designs for two prominent two-letter acronyms: IG and NI.

Logo round-up: May 2020

The May logo round-up is ready, so here it is. May 2020 was decidedly less busy than May 2019, but there were still a few notable changes, such as the simplified Dolby logo, the return of Ampol in Australia and the overall refresh of the Adobe Creative Cloud icons.

Logo round-up: April 2020

We're on a six month delay, but the April logo round-up is finally here! It'll be a while before we catch up.

Much of the world was in full lockdown during April, so economic activity came as close to a halt as is possible.

Logo round-up: March 2020

March 2020 was when much of the world introduced national lockdowns and stay-at-home orders. This gradually halted all sorts of economic activity, including rebrands.

The last couple of months have been tumultuous for many people around the world. For me, one small change was that the various moments used to update the next logo round-up dried up, which means we have a bit of a backlog that I hope will be remedied later this summer.

Logo round-up: February 2020

February was the last month before the virus hit the west, with rebrands happening as usual. Some of the more notable ones were the new Google Maps pin, Sonic restaurants, The New Republic and Sears.

New TBS logo slanted towards the world

TBS, or Tokyo Broadcasting System, is one of the major television networks in Japan, broadcasting to Tokyo since 1951. On April 1, it launched a new visual identity which they had revealed back in January.

TBS had used it's previous logo - horribly stretched bold serif letters - since around 1994-ish. The new identity programme launches with a new corporate philosophy promising to increasingly make TBS programming available to the rest of the world, which may explain why they needed at logo that didn't look awful to westerners.

The new blue logo features a 66.6 degree slant extending from the upper part of the S to the bottom of the T. This slant mirrors the 23.4 degree angle of Earth's axis, while also representing a "door to tomorrow".

Logo round-up: January 2020

It's time for the first logo round-up of the decade! Among the famous brands that restyled this January were some major industrial companies like ADM and Northrop Grumman, publisher DK, fashion brand Kenzo, the Bank of Ireland as well as classic Internet firms GoDaddy and Tripadvisor.

Business Wire doesn't announce new logo

Business Wire is one of America's leading distributor of press releases. It was bought by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway in 2006. They still own it, making Business Wire one of few press release distributors not snapped up by the Cision conglomerate. Last week, probably on February 26, they introduced a new logo.

Business Wire is a frequent source for information about logo changes, which makes the fact that this logo changed wasn't accompanied by a press release ironic. The new logo drops the dated and generic globe-swoosh in favour of a monogram in a circle.

From 1966: Radio Advertising Representatives logo by Tom Woodward

Time once again to spotlight a forgotten '60s logo! Radio Advertising Representatives was the radio advertising arm of Westinghouse Broadcasting, one of the major radio and TV station owners in golden age of over-the-air TV. It was known as AM Radio Sales Co. until 1966 when the name was changed.

With the namechange came a new logo, developed by Tom Woodward who at the time had a studio on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles. The new logo was launched through ads in trade and mass press on October 3, 1966.

Bold brands borderless banking app Majority

Majority is a new banking app from Rebtel, a company that hitherto provided affordable international telephony. Majority is billed as the "first digital financial service for migrants", helping migrants get access to financial services typically reserved to citizens and permanent residents. It and launched in September 2019 with an identity by Stockholm-based Bold Scandinavia.

Bold wanted to create an inclusive identity. In addition to the simple wordmark, the letterforms have also been turned into a pattern of shape inspired by national flags.

Logo round-up: December 2019

Here's the final regular monthly logo round-up for 2019, featuring a small collection of new projects from around the world.

Logos of the 2010s: Charities and non-profits

Many prominent design agencies set of time for some pro bono work, meaning worthy causes like charities and other non-profits benefit from experienced identity designers who are allowed to apply their creativity with less economic pressure.

This summary is mainly focused on aid and advocacy groups. I've also included a few other non-profits, like scout organisations. It does not include sports and culture logos; there will be a special feature on the latter later on.

New looks slide in for SVT's Rapport and Aktuellt

Sweden's national broadcaster, SVT, moved its national news programmes to a new studio recently. With that they introduced completely overhauled graphics and intros. Gothenburg-based Happy F&B is credited for the overall design rules, but much of the implementation was done in-house by SVT Design.

SVT has two national news programmes, with Rapport being the main news bulletin while Aktuellt is a daily in-depth current affairs programme. Rapport was first to move to the new studio, on December 5, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of its first broadcast. Aktuellt followed this week, on January 20.

Rapport had used the previous graphics since 2009 (details here), while Aktuellt was last overhauled in 2012.

The previous look for Rapport and associated programmes was characterised by heavy use of the slab-serif typeface PMN Caecilia and a clear red colour. Aspects of those recognisable elements have been carried over to the new look with a refreshed red colour. A slab serif typeface is still used for logos, although it now appears to be a modified version of the bespoke SVT typeface SVT Publik. Red is reserved for Rapport and local news, while other programmes have their own colours.

Aktuellt has a radical overhaul and a clean break with its previous look, which was already somewhat dated back in 2012. It adopts a logo in line with that of Rapport, but with a black-and-white colour scheme, described as "dynamic and sharp".

The intros for all programmes feature sliding images to an electronic tune, a combination previously adopted by NRK in Norway. The main feature of the new studio is a whirling 65 square metre screen that allows the scenery to change at an instant.

Logo round-up: November 2019

Looking back on November 2019, it featured several prominent introductions of new logos,including Facebook (, Inc.), PBS, Microsoft programmes, the Netherlands, Warner Bros. and Germany's public broadcaster. Somehow, this round-up also ended up the biggest one ever with almost 80 new logos. November is usually a slow month, so this was perhaps a case of people targeting the new decade with their rebrands.

Logos of the 2010s: Telecom

In our retrospective summary of the logos of the 2010s, we've arrived at telecommunication companies, or telcos for short. What was once the realm of bureacratic monopolies is now filled with friendly brands, eager to stand out.

On noticeable trend is that Saffron dominated both in quality and quantity when it came to innovative telco rebrands. Wally Olins clearly carried over that mantle from Wolff Olins, which lead telco branding in the '00s.

Logos of the 2010s: Media

Following the two posts on TV logos of the 2010s, here's a summary of of the most important logo changes in other forms on media. "Media" is pretty broad, but this summary is mostly focused on legacy media and editorial content.