Digital UK Design Blog

Full credit and roundup from Underconsideration.com, thanks guys for the fantastic resources!

We follow on the theme of rebranding by major brands by having a quick roundup. Following on from the calamitous Pepsi rebrand here are 20 rebrands that have taken place over the last few months, let us know what floats your boat.

Starbucks, Back to the Future

Starbucks rebrand

Howard Schultz returns as CEO of Starbucks and has unleashed an unprecedented wave of brand nostalgia by deploying the original Starbucks logo.

Kraft Foods, making today delicious

Kraft Foods rebrand

With a new purpose and values setting a fresh direction, Kraft Foods also gave its corporate logo a facelift to more clearly deliver “delicious.” Starting today, people around the world will begin to see the new identity that deliciously features a smile, the natural reaction to delicious foods and experiences, and a colorful flavor burst. It signals to employees, consumers and investors what the new Kraft Foods is all about.
— Press release

Hudson’s Bay Co.

Hudson's Bat Co. Rebrand

Hudson’s Bay Co., founded in 1670 by King Charles II, is a huge Canadian retailer with over 600 retail locations all across Canada.

Sci Fi becomes SyFy

Sci fi rebrands to SyFy

When networks present their new programming, sell big chunks of advertising and announce any major changes — the 16-year-old Sci Fi Channel announced that on July 7 it will change its name and identity to Syfy.

Jack in the box

Jack in the box

The old logo had all the fixings of a classic American fast food chain logo: red and quirky typography. Plus years of equity. The new logo is a very contemporary departure from the original, which is par for what’s been happening to fast food logos, and the new, custom script is quite attractive and dynamic. And, pending a press release, I’m pretty sure the tail of the “k” is meant to be a smile.

Citroen

Citroen rebrand

Designed by Landor, the new logo comes as Citroën celebrates its 90th anniversary (founded in 1919) and as it unveils new models of its DS line

Air France

Air France rebrand

Operating since 1933, Air France has become one of the biggest and most recognized airlines in the world, traveling to nearly 100 countries. A new identity, replacing its last update since 1975, has been designed by Brandimage.

Asian Football Confederation

Asian Football Confederation

Hosted by the Asian Football Confederation, Asia’s governing body of soccer, the annual AFC Champions League features the best clubs from each country competing for Asian soccer supremacy. This past December they unveiled a new identity aimed towards the new and growing generation of soccer enthusiasts.

Sprite

Sprite rebrand

Just in time for the NBA All-Star’s Slam Dunk contest which Sprite sponsors they are putting into use a new, dynamic and active logo that, in context, is actually quite decent.

My Fonts

My Fonts gets a rebrand

With an ever growing library of more than 62,000 typefaces from more than 400 foundries and designers, MyFonts has been one of the most comprehensive shopping spots on the web since its launch in 1999.

Sandisk

Sandisk - fantastic rebrand

SanDisk / Pound for pound, letter for letter, ligature for ligature, the best redesign of a wordmark that retains the essence of the original while pushing the company into the new, young century.

Ford

Ford

Ha! Only kidding. Making sure you’re paying attention.

Pepsi

Pepsi

Pepsi Rebrand, absolute waste of millions of dollars.

Capitol One

Capitol One

Capital One / A swoosh in 2009? And, even by swoosh standards, a crappy one at that?

Xerox

Xerox rebrand

Xerox / Taking the marble-lowercase trend to the extreme. And sucking at it. Barclaycard came in close second in this category.

Barclaycard

Barclaycard

Barclaycard / My sister works for them so I best be nice.

Roundup

Pepsi takes the crown for worst logo rebrand in the category years 2006-2009. Our personal winner has to be Citroen, simple, shinny and French – Au revoir!

Full credit and roundup from Underconsideration.com, thanks guys for the fantastic resources!

This week at work was quite exciting with a brand awareness campaign spear-headed by a photo shoot outside our offices. A large 4m squared sign of our logo, in 16 seperate pieces was created prior to the shoot by our sign makers, and would serve as the focus of the campaign. Each member of the team would hold a piece of the puzzle, run around in an unorganised manner then swiftly come together to form the 9xb logo.

This photo shoot was initially setup for a press release shot to welcome a new member to the team. I was asked to come up with an idea for the photo that would fill the following criteria:

  • Show the new member of the team
  • Show off our new premises
  • Show the size of our team
  • Show that we’re a local design agency with real creativity
  • Portray a fun and friendly company, not afraid of making a fool of ourselves

The standard shot would of been to have the boss (Rob) shaking hands with Gyles (new sales executive) outside the building on a sunny day, with the logo on the wall in the background and two cheesy smiles finishing off the scene. Dull huh?

I thought why not portray our company visually somehow. The boss has always stated it’s the people that underpins the company so why not get them involved? Why not visually represent this somehow in the photo? So, 16 pieces of the logo, 16 members of staff making up the puzzle, with the message being that we believe each member is part of the company and collectively form 9xb as we know it?

In concept it sounded perfect, a massive floating logo hovering around the car park, it’s fun, light hearted, but most of all the key message being thrown out there is our logo and image. Brand awareness gone crazy. Now let’s look at some snap shots I took of the fiasco, with a behind the scenes feel to see what actually happened.


The team gathers


Joanne and Zoe start proceedings


Chris and Dan complete the second row


Logo starts to form


Cool it’s complete – Joanne cheekily peeking through.


And relax!


Looking at what’s actually going on underneath the logo – CHAOS!


Another angle

Ok so the logo looked all over the place, but that was the point, ununiformity adding character and a sense of fun to the shoot, which in turn would hopefully stay in peoples minds.

If you visit Google today you should notice a link under the search bar:

U.K. kids design a Google logo. Vote for your favourite.

At Google, we like to reflect the ever changing world of our users through the logo designs on our homepage. The ‘Doodle 4 Google’ competition asks young people across the UK to design their own ‘Google Doodle’ and the winning entry will be used on the Google homepage in the UK on 1st October.

For this year’s contest, which has been held in association with the Daily Mirror’s ‘Pride of Britain’ awards, 70k doodles were created across the UK. Our judging panel have selected their top 48, and you can vote for your favourite below.

The voting system is split into the follow age groups, 5-7 yrs, 7-11 yrs, 11-14 yrs, 14-16 yrs.

Who I’d vote for:

Age group 5-7 yrs

My friendly community
My community has friendly people to help out and places to play.

Name: Amelia Warcup
Age: 6

I love this, it’s simple and bright.

Age group 7-11 yrs

Helping Together
My doodle shows lots of people working together to help repair the Google sign. If everyone worked together as a team, they could repair the earth’s environment. I hope this message is spread around the world, so that people start helping to make the world a better place

Name: Anna Readman
Age: 11

In my opinion this age group created the best logos by far. It was extremely hard to choose a favourite as I genuinely loved 4-5 of them. It’s amazing what children can create at such a young age.

Age group 11-14 yrs

I love my community
I choose Graffiti because Bristols background are highly influenced by artists such as Banksy, therefore it is normal for Bristol’s community to be enriched with graffiti. The two hands represent our community where black and white people can unite and help each other to develop the place where we live in. Unfortunatly, there is alot of rubbish in my community and I hope to make a point and do my part to help the community.

Name: Thang Huynh
Age: 14

Brilliant creative imagination by Thang aged 14

Age group 14-16 yrs

Happy Times
When trying to fit my doodle in to theme of ‘My Community’ I used different pictures that normally feature in a community. For example, people close together on the letters, love hearts to symbolise relationships and colour to add more of an effect. The people are all different races but still are playing together in harmony. The rainbow symbolises peace and the joining of different communities.

Name: Daniel Thorne
Age: 15

Just love this, it’s awesome.

Have a look yourself and see if your winners match mine, View all entries and vote here

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