Probably the best billboard I’ve ever seen.

Photo credit: Draftfcb / UTEC

Situated outside the small community of Bujama, Peru, it cost around $32,000 to make, and creates approximately 100 litres of drinkable water every day.

“It works by condensing vapour in the air (humidity in the region is around 98 per cent) into water, before passing it through a series of filters and running it under UV lamps for further purification. The clean water is then collected in a tank and dispensed through a tap which can be used by anyone walking past.”

Quoted from Creative Review.

The video embedded below gives a bit more detail.

Client: UTEC Agency: Draftfcb

Also reported on the BBC website: Advert turns air into water.

Brilliant idea. Let’s hope it’s not a one-off.

Brand identity inspiration on Identity Designed.

Backgrounds of lightly-colored hues abound in this week's Friday Likes with work from the UK, Russia, and Greece.

Potwash John

The task for this student project was to "make a seemingly un-brandable field of work appear extremely professional." Preston, UK-based Sam Sharples chose the field of washing pots for fictional industry superstar "Potwash John". Being student work there are a few details about the identity that are a little undercooked, but the main visual device of the pink and blue plastic against light blue and pink backgrounds respectively truly elevate this humble pot washer into a fashionable brand. The humor of the concept and execution are scrubby-good. [More].

Malina.am

Meaning "raspberry" in Russian, Malina is a new internet television channel that "depicts and is intended for those whose life is bright and successful." What I understand is that the programming is led by experts in their fields, including "deputies, ministers, businessmen, renowned musicians and public figures" that serve as hosts and journalists. Yekaterinburg, Russia-based StreetArt created an explosive identity around the color of raspberry, instead of trying to include the raspberry somewhere in there. It's hip, it's internet-ey, it has the professionalism of a regular TV channel, and it sometimes goes boom — see animations at the link. [More]

Elina's Bakery

Baking goodies from her home in Athens, Greece, Elina Smith's logo is as charming as a baby cupcake. Mixing an oven with a roof's house, the message couldn't be clearer: homemade. It's not a perfect logo, it's perhaps a little too thick, with some of the corners getting a little mushy but it's a real tasty idea. The logo and identity, designed by local designers George Strouzas and Konstantina Yiannakopoulou, are printed on lightly-colored hued papers and is complemented by an illustration of lots of big buildings, which seem like another project altogether but I guess they do sort of help offset the little house as something special among the city's bustle. [More]

A recent blog post, Your Logo is Not Hardcore, got Bucharest-based designer Andrei Tache thinking. He shared a few relevant comments in this guest piece.

Nike VCXC branding by Jon Contino

Context

We’re able to see those X-based logos together because the Internet connects everything, making it look like the world is one big box, but to each of us, life still takes its course in a limited area. Maybe all of those logos do their job for a small area and stand-out just as they are. Regardless, it’s no longer possible to have perfectly distinct logos for every business. You can hardly have that within a specific domain, much less cross-domain as it’s depicted in the case of Your Logo is Not Hardcore. Just because there are so many similar-looking logos doesn’t mean they’re not distinct.

Template

Although this particular design direction looks like a fashionable decision to make, I’d argue that the form is quite generic. Maybe just as generic as a square or a circle. The X looks like the new square, and it feels rather natural for designers to make more use of a new geometric form. Even looking at the examples in this collection, you know that it’s a route that leaves room for innovation. Its versatility creates its own place in graphic design, representative of our period.

Fashion

Fashion is a taboo subject for designers but maybe it should be looked at more closely. Fashion is about mass adoption of a certain mentality or a certain way of doing things. This means that fashion is a statement about the times in which we live — a statement that will be of value in 30 or 50 years from now. Just as we like motifs from other recent periods, this might grow into a classic of our time.

The downsides come through two means: one is that if you adopt ways that are fashionable today, you are already behind the flock. You’d be better off shaping the next best thing, but not everyone’s an innovator, and that’s fine. The second problem one might encounter is using fashionable shapes without having an understanding about what they mean. This can result in poor design that lacks coherence and intellectual content. But because the X stands for so many things, it’s difficult to mishandle.

Immortality

We design symbols to last, but nothing lasts forever, really. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try, I’m saying that thinking about something with a life cycle seems more natural and might offer a different perspective within the process.

Old ways

The form of these X-based logos can conjure thoughts of heraldry. So maybe it’s just an old habit with contemporary ways. But there’s one small glitch to this…

New ways

Similar-looking designs don’t work for us because we glance over them so quickly that we only grasp the main features. Crests come from a time where this just wasn’t the case. But maybe, just maybe we should consider slowing down a bit. It’s clear to us that logos won’t get more distinctive, so perhaps it’s us. Perhaps we should slow down and go into more detail, enjoy nicely crafted things, despite their vague resemblance to tons of other stuff. This calls for peace, thoughtful analysis, and a slower pace.

But it goes to show that maybe hardcore is not what a good logo should strive for.

—

You can view some of Andrei’s work on his website: Fabrica de Design.

Related, from the archives: When logos look alike.

Opened to the public in 1992 in the suburb of Bloomington in Minneapolis near the Twin Cities, the Mall of America (MOA) is he United States' largest retail and entertainment complex as a 4.87 million square foot structure sitting in a plot of land 78 acres big — either 7 baseball stadiums or 32 Boeing 747s would fit inside. Attracting 42 million visitors annually, MOA houses 520 shops, an indoor amusement park with 27 rides, an indoor aquarium, a 14-screen movie theater, and even a chapel that weds over 300 couples every year. In other words: it's big, it's bombastic, and, um, it's big. Yesterday, MOA introduced its new identity designed by Minneapolis-based Duffy & Partners.

The creative process recognized the equity found in the star of the original logo and transformed it into the dynamic new star made of vibrant colored ribbons. The ribbons depict the multitude of the always fresh, exciting and new experiences at Mall of America which is the magic of the brand. — Press release

As an animation, flowing ribbons of color streak across the screen to create the "star" shape. These ribbons are designed to be a nod to the ribbons of the retired Mall of America logo. The fluid motion of the ribbons represents the Mall's constant change and innovation, while the ribbons themselves are more literally interpreted as a representation of shopping and gift-giving. — Press release

Identity elements.

Identity presentation video. Animated logo and a few more applications not shown in images in this post.

Above and below, the identity on staples of the mall experience.

The previous logo was a rather gaudy and unsophisticated interpretation of what MOA is, with a very poor rendition of the star and stripes and poor typography — more Big Gulp than Starbucks Macchiato. The new logo is a fantastic evolution of the same elements now executed with proper sophistication and accuracy. It's still not Saks-Fifth-Avenue sophisticated but that's something it can not be or should not be. The logo is simple and pretty and fun and makes you want to wrap everything you bought in colorful ribbons. It turns MOA from a kitschy destination to high-end one. We've seen ribbon-based logos before so, in that respect this is nothing new, but here they make conceptual sense and are perfectly applied when used as patterns and visual device to hold the name of the mall. The flexibility of the whole system is subtle yet very important to keep fresh what must be hundreds of communication materials issued monthly throughout the mall. Overall, a great system all around, from logo to prototype mugs.

Predating both Central Park and Prospect Park, Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn was one of the most important landscapes of the 19th century, ultimately influencing the rise of public parks and green space in the US. Pentagram’s Abbott Miller has designed A Beautiful Way to Go: New York’s Green-Wood Cemetery, a new exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York that commemorates the 175th anniversary of this national historic landmark. The show opens this week and remains on view through September 15.

Established in 1838 in what was then a rural area of the city, Green-Wood is a bucolic 478-acre landscape of rolling hills, gentle ponds, meandering paths and striking Gothic Revival architecture that was for a time the most popular tourist attraction in the country. Visitors enjoyed the beautiful natural setting and saw the cemetery as a place of repose and relaxation. Green-Wood eventually inspired the design of Central Park and Prospect Park, as well as the creation of the first suburb, Llewelyn Park in New Jersey.

Miller’s exhibition design creates a continuous environmental surface from historic maps of the cemetery. Museum visitors navigate the exhibition encountering objects and stories of Green-Wood’s most famous “residents” that are positioned according to their location within the landscape.

Among Green-Wood’s 560,000 burials are figures central to the social, political and cultural life of New York City, including Leonard Bernstein, Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Boss Tweed, Henry Steinway, and F.A.O. Schwarz. The cemetery grounds are a museum of monuments and statuary by leading architects and artists including Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Stanford White and Richard Upjohn, and the iconic Gothic chapel at the main gate was designed by Warren & Wetmore, creators of Grand Central Terminal.

The exhibition design gathers artifacts within a range of lantern-like vitrines, conjuring an impression of the park at twilight. A series of maps that document the distinctive, twisting paths and roads of the park are spliced together on the floor, creating a miniaturized landscape. Significant burial plots and the artifacts and images associated with them are arranged according to their position on the map. These objects include a peacock headdress for Louis Tiffany, a pencil for Eberhard Faber, a photographic portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat, and gold, onyx and diamond cuff links for Boss Tweed.

The story of the cemetery itself is told through historic documents; sculptures, drawings and paintings (by Asher Brown Durand, of the Hudson River School); and photographs, including eight large images of the park in different seasons by Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao. Vintage guidebooks, prints and souvenirs capture Green-Wood’s days as a tourist attraction.

Project Team: Abbott Miller, partner-in-charge and designer; Jesse Kidwell and Kim Walker, designers. Photographs by Bilyana Dimitrova.

In 2005, the MoMA Design Store launched the first of its Destination: Design series that brings products from different cities and countries from around the world to the museum's store. The project has a couple of benefits: a) more cool stuff to buy at MoMA and b) exposure for local artists who may not otherwise get a chance to sell their work at such large scale. So far, the series has brought products from Finland, Denmark, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Japan, Seoul, Brazil, Portugal, Istanbul, and Mexico. Its latest edition is Destination: NYC, a collection with approximately 200 lifestyle products including home accessories, furniture, paper goods and jewelry — all products are manufactured in the U.S.. Each edition in the series has had its own identity, sometimes designed in-house at MoMA, others in collaboration. This one was designed with the School of Visual Arts Masters in Branding Program under the guidance of Mark Kingsley, who also wrote advertising headlines and copy, designed window and store displays (currently in progress) and product photography.

Destination NYC uses a flexible identity where disparate elements, from all corners of the world, collide, contrast and combine into a vibrant whole. The holding shape suggests the everyday landmark of New York City: the corner. "Meet me at the corner of..." "It's at the corner of..." — Presentation materials

All version of the logo.

Detail view of each "corner".

There is plenty of stuff to see, so I'll state my peace early on. If there is one thing to say about this, it is that it feels like New York. It's messy, it's busy, it's cacophonous, it's a bunch of stuff piled on each other regardless of whether it's cool (graffiti) or uncool (pigeon). The concept of putting it all in a "corner" is a great way to tie it all together. The logos have a great, raw energy to them that is then nicely tempered in application with more MoMA-esque approaches of simple typography and white backgrounds. Overall, the project is a fun, over-the-top answer to a somewhat ephemeral project that will live until the next Destination arrives.

MoMA website.

Video for display use at MoMA's Soho store.

Video for display use at MoMA store, split across three screens.

Prototypes for stuff.

Urban panels.

Wild postings.

Wild postings detail.

Merchandise display.

Process and presentation images. Click on each to view bigger.

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/max-2013/community-inspires-creativity-paula-scher/

http://www.rgdontario.com/events-and-programs/rgd-events/events/116.php

Established in 1963 as Pinault — later Pinault-Printemps, later Pinault-Printemps-Redoute, most recently PPR, and completely renamed as Kering this past March — is one of the most comprehensive parent company of luxury brands, including Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Brioni, Christopher Kane, and Stella McCartney among others as well as sports brand Puma. Family-owned since its inception, Kering is present in more than 120 countries, it employs 33,000 people and generates 9.7 billion euros in revenue. The new name was created internally with help from Havas Lifestyle, who are also credited with designing the logo and identity while Dragon Rouge is credited with brand strategy and the signature.

Logo animation.

Brand introduction video.

First and foremost, Kering can be pronounced as 'caring' in English, which expresses our company culture of taking care of our brands, people, stakeholders and the environment. The suffix '-ing' expresses the idea of movement, one of the constants in the Group's history, as well as its international dimension. The stem 'ker', meaning home in Breton, is a proud reminder of our origins in the Brittany region of France. — Press release

Our new emblem, the owl, represents vision, as well as being a sign of wisdom. A discreet and protective animal, it is a powerful symbol for a Group that spots potential and guides and nurtures its brands and people. — Press release

With its sharp vision and 270° swiveling radius of the head, the owl represents Kering's visionary character and foresight, its ability to anticipate trends and spot the potential in people and brands. A protective and unobtrusive creature, the bird of the goddess Athena, it symbolises wisdom and intelligent activity. — PDF dossier

The previous logo was exactly what most acronym-based logos for corporations end up looking like: stiff and forgettable. Nothing necessarily wrong with it but when you see the alternative, as is the case here, you wonder why companies will settle for so little. The new logo is an excellent evolution that establishes the parent company of all these luxury brands as a brand all its own. (It could be argued that a parent company should not call too much attention to itself and recede to the background with a stiff and forgettable logo). The owl icon is charming and sophisticated, something you could see debossed on a black leather folder with financial numbers inside, yet, in the way the owl's face is drawn, there is an interesting playfulness to it. The airy wordmark is a great complement to the owl, if a little big in relationship. It has just the right amount of customization in the little swashes on the "K" and "R" and nothing more.

Lastly, our new signature, 'Empowering Imagination', places imagination at the heart of our business, enabling us to create value in the widest sense. At Kering, we encourage and take care of imagination to push our brands and teams to new limits, to create, innovate and realise their artistic and financial potential — in the most sustainable manner. — Press release

Launch campaign print ads, how all the elements come together.

Then things start to get wonky in application and with the introduction of the handwritten signature. It's like another company altogether. One trying to be hipper but keeping that fashion-world-print-ad aesthetic of forced bluntness. This is only the launch campaign and its point is to communicate the name change and introduce the brand's elements so hopefully as recognition rises, the applications will get better.

Thanks to Witek Gottesman for the tip.

Hinted to as early as July of 2012 and officially announced this past December, Rupert Mudorch's News Corporation is splitting into two separate businesses. The first, to remain named News Corporation will handle all the publishing properties — newspapers and magazines — like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post, with the former's managing editor, Robert Thompson, as CEO. The second, to be renamed 21st Century Fox will handle the entertainment properties — cable and television channels, filmed entertainment, and direct satellite broadcasting businesses — including the FOX network, 20th Century FOX, FX, among dozens of other channels with Rupert Murdoch as CEO. Absolutely every single property will retain its existing name and logo. The name, 21st Century Fox, will serve as the parent company only and the logo — announced this past Thursday via an e-mail to employees — will only be a business-to-business mark. It was designed by Pentagram partners Michael Gericke and Emily Oberman.

The name and symbol distill the elements of Fox's familiar searchlights-and-monument logo into a dynamic new identity. The 21st Century Fox logo features a pair of sweeping searchlights that suggest entertainment, broadcasting and limitless possibilities within a circle shape inspired by a lens. Iconic and distinctive, the symbol is accompanied by a wordmark set in strong, stacked lettering that is derived from the typographic pedestal of the Twentieth Century Fox logo and Fox Broadcasting's wordmark. — Pentagram project page

"Today I am proud to unveil our new logo, which serves as a powerful symbol of the inspiration and high bar set by our company. Like our name, the logo reflects the rich creative heritage of Twentieth Century Fox and signals the promise of the 21st century and our restless drive toward the future." — E-mail from News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch to employees

For extra clarification as it relates to entertainment properties that contain the name FOX: 21st Century Fox is the parent company, the existing logos DO NOT change.

To clarify for a third time, the new logo does not replace the famous 20th Century Fox logo and movie opener — I'll take bets now on how many people in the comments bitch about how that logo should not have been changed. Anyway, with that in mind, this new logo has a couple of roles to play or things to communicate: 1) Its association with all things "FOX" and 2) its role as an entertainment company. The first is achieved by modeling the typography after the FOX Network logo (shown in blue above) and to a certain degree on the lettering on the 20th Century Fox logo as well as by translating its moving spotlights into a static version that, in turn, help achieve the second aspect of entertainment: Creating an instant association with the famous logo and red carpet events and movie openings that enjoy the spectacle of moving spotlights.

So, the logo does its job. It just happens to do it in a rather underwhelming way. The typography feels far too informal — and Kabel-ish — to elicit the associations with the monument-like lettering of the studio it takes its name from and there is also something not quite finished or finessed about the spotlights in a circle, or maybe it's just the large size of it against the typography. Perhaps we've grown so accustomed to the corporate-ness of News Corp. that this relatively playful logo is just not corporate enough.

Finally, for some levity and because there really aren't that many opportunities to break this out, I leave you with one of the best renditions of the 20th Century Fox fanfare. Take it away, Mr. Wiggum.

Thanks to Barkley Anderson for first tip.

The 83rd International Geneva Motor Show was a landmark event for Rolls Royce, with the launch of their new WRAITH. Justus Oehler and his team designed the customer experience for their exhibition space, building on his work with the company over the last two years and creating a narrative and a monolithic expression for the brand, encapsulating style and elegance.

The space was multifaceted, featuring a large lounge with a seating and bar area, an atelier, a sales area and glass cabinets with after-sales items. All areas were gathered around a Rolls-Royce car, a focal point in the space. Oehler designed the atelier shelves, with all its original pieces sourced from the Rolls-Royce workshops and factory. He also designed the information graphics and selected the materials needed to develop the overall look and feel of the space, collaborating with Puchner P3 architects based in Munich.

The exhibition space also had an interactive element, with information plinths fitted with internal illumination. When switched off, the plinths appeared completely black; when switched on, they pulsated, revealing type synchronised with the launch video.

Oehler and his team are now working on the next show, the IAA in Frankfurt.

Project team: Justus Oehler, partner-in-charge and designer; Sonja Scharrer, project manager and David Steingrüber, designer.

Phaidon is releasing a revised and expanded edition of Per Mollerup’s 1997 book Marks of Excellence. Steven Heller took the opportunity to ask Per a few questions.

Cover detail from the new edition of Marks of Excellence (link shows photos of the first edition)

“…is Microsoft’s logo ‘excellent’ because the design is impeccable, or because consumers recognize it in an instant? Is Harrods’ script ‘excellent’ because it is old, or for aesthetic reasons? Is Chiquita Banana ‘excellent’ because it deploys a dancing banana and we find her cute? And is Ray-Ban ‘excellent’ because of all the fashion advertising buzz that has built its rep?” — STEVEN HELLER

“Well-designed logos are the work of the designers. Successful logos imply the company’s use of the logo. A mediocre logo in terms of design quality can be used to good effect through a great mix of consistency and variation. The Coca-Cola logo is not, and never was, an outstanding design. However, it has been used with great ingenuity.” — PER MOLLERUP

Read the full piece here: Do good logos need to actually, you know, look good?

Via @johnsonbanks.

Things revolve around hand-drawn logos, animals, bearded tattooed models and other fine European accoutrements.

Liseberg

To more fully appreciate the new identity for Liseberg, an amusement park located in Gothenburg, Sweden, it's probably best that you first look at the old logo (make it pop-up here). Chuck E. Cheese-ish, ain't it? The new identity by Stockholm-based Happy F&B adds sophistication where there was none, with a perfectly balanced color palette and fun graphics, along with a redesigned, 1-color rabbit. I would go to there just for the popcorn boxes. [More].

The Collection

I must be on a kick of ugly-ish design (what with the BNC13 identity and all) but I really like this harsh signature-like logo by London-based mind design for The Collection, a (I believe, now-defunct) restaurant at the Royal Academy of Arts designed by interior designer Tom Dixon. The logo is jerky and bendy but it becomes almost luxurious in application with some metallic inks but it can also be hip as a neon sign. The rest of the identity uses a condensed sans serif and a palette of purples and teals and split fountains that seem like another project altogether (but one that would also be cool on its own). Regardless, all is good. [More]

Roar

Nothing says "roar" like a chicken, jack russell terrier, and a goat, right? Yet that's what makes this identity by London-based ORB get people's attention. To give a voice to Roar — a provider of business communications (VoIP telphony, broadband, or mobile services) — ORB brought together a cackle of animals and a bearded model to become spokesbeings for the company in a quirky video introduction and identity. [More]

The searchlights of Twentieth Century Fox are one of the most recognized icons in the world. Pentagram’s Michael Gericke and Emily Oberman have drawn on this rich heritage and Fox’s contemporary innovations in media to create the logo and develop the name for 21st Century Fox. The new media and entertainment company will be established following the proposed separation of News Corporation into two companies. 21st Century Fox will serve as the umbrella company for Twentieth Century Fox and the rest of the group’s entertainment and media properties, all of which will retain their existing well-known names and logos.

Pentagram worked closely with the 21st Century Fox team on the development of the identity, which is designed to honor the creative legacy of Twentieth Century Fox and celebrate the company’s vital future. The name and symbol distill the elements of Fox’s familiar searchlights-and-monument logo into a dynamic new identity. The 21st Century Fox logo features a pair of sweeping searchlights that suggest entertainment, broadcasting and limitless possibilities within a circle shape inspired by a lens. Iconic and distinctive, the symbol is accompanied by a wordmark set in strong, stacked lettering that is derived from the typographic pedestal of the Twentieth Century Fox logo and Fox Broadcasting’s wordmark.

The new name is inspired by Twentieth Century Fox, the legendary film studio that News Corporation acquired in 1984 in its first foray into entertainment. The new name draws upon the rich creative heritage of Twentieth Century Fox, while also speaking to the innovation and dynamism that will define each of the group’s businesses through the 21st Century.

Project Team: Michael Gericke and Emily Oberman, partners-in-charge and designers; Jonathan Correira and Jed Skillins, senior designers.

Pentagram is thrilled to announce that our partner Paula Scher has been selected to receive the 2013 National Design Award for Communication Design. The National Design Awards celebrate outstanding achievement and innovation in design and are sponsored by Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. First Lady Michelle Obama serves as the Honorary Patron for this year’s awards, and the recipients will be honored at a gala on October 17 in New York, in conjunction with National Design Week.

Scher has been at the forefront of graphic design for over four decades. Bold, smart and accessible, her images have entered the American vernacular. She has created identity and branding systems, environmental graphics, packaging and publication designs for clients that include Bloomberg, Citibank, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Bausch + Lomb, the Museum of Modern Art, the Public Theater, the High Line, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, the New York Philharmonic, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, among many, many others. She was previously a Finalist in the Communication Design category in 2005 and 2007.

Congratulations, Paula!

First staged in 2009, the Maha Music Festival is a volunteer-run event in Omaha, Nebraska, featuring local, regional, and national indie and alternative rock artists that last attracted over 4,000 attendees — 2013 will be headlined by The Flaming Lips. Starting in 2012 the festival adopted a new identity by local firm Oxide Design. I realize this breaks my own criteria of the timeliness of work to be posted on Brand New and for all Omahans who consider this old news we deeply apologize (not too deeply) but, for some reason, today I struggled to find something interesting to post and this project had been piled on with other news since February and, well, it's interesting.

Bird icon evolution.

[We] looked to evoke the lore of the Maha while simultaneously capturing the festival's key elements: pride, place, and independence. We found the perfect solution in the great chief of the Maha, Chief Blackbird. The Maha were the most powerful Native American tribe of the Great Plains — a people whose name inspired our city's, and then the festival's. Oxide developed a modern symbol for the Chief that hints at the visual style of the Plains Indians, but is still pure rock n' roll. — Oxide Design case study

As we expanded on the identity, we wanted to capture the feel of the festival by implementing the bold, gritty visual style that so perfectly represents rock music. Black and white grainy photography, vintage Omaha maps, and rough textures create the building blocks for all collateral pieces. — Oxide Design case study

The previous logo was already quite good, if a little Hawaiian in flavor — whatever that means — with what appears to be a sun setting behind the sea. The MAHA lettering was nice and the texture gave it that indie feel. Too bad about that Helvetica plopped in at the bottom. But that old logo could have been for any number of music festivals. The new identity, well, it brings it home. In both concept and execution. The blackbird icon is bold and graphic and, more importantly in this case, it looks great on a t-shirt. The "MAHA" custom lettering is a great complement to the icon and even the "Music Festival" at the bottom is well considered and a good complementary typeface for the rest of the materials. Fun project for a fun client.

https://nppa.org/news/wars-wake-aftermath-iraq-and-afghanistan-featured-speaker-ashley-gilbertson

Partner DJ Stout and designer Carla Delgado in Pentagram’s Austin office have recently completed a new identity and a rebranding of Oklahoma City University (OCU). The private urban college, located in the Uptown District of its namesake city, is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and offers a wide variety of degrees in the liberal arts, fine arts, science and business. The only Oklahoma institution listed in the top tier of the regional, master’s-level university category by U.S. News and World Report, OCU is also listed in Forbes’ “Best Christian Colleges” and “100 Best College Buys.”

Oklahoma City University is also known for its top-notch dance, music and theater programs and its impressive track-record of placing graduates in Broadway musicals and theatrical productions, most notably in the lineups of the Radio City Rockettes. In addition to its performing arts prowess OCU is renowned for its many beauty pageant contestants, contributing $2.2 million in educational scholarships to more than 340 pageant contestants over the last 55 years. Fondly dubbed “Miss America U” for its tradition of winning pageants, OCU boasts 24 Miss Oklahomas and holds the record for Miss America winners. A larger than life-size bronze statue portraying the school’s three former Miss Americas—Jane Jayroe, Susan Powell and Shawntel Smith—stands guard at the entrance to the campus.

Before Stout and Delgado redesigned it, OCU’s primary logo featured a silhouetted likeness of the university’s iconic Gold Star Tower, a 286-foot red brick tower built in 1953 to honor Methodists who died in World War II. The tower, an Oklahoma City landmark located prominently in the center of campus, is topped off with a 200-pound star positioned at the end of a long pole like a star on a Christmas tree. “OCU’s sports teams are called The Stars after the Gold Star Tower, and many of the university’s celebrity alumni, like the Tony Award-winning Kristin Chenoweth, are singers and dancers and ‘stars’ of the stage,” says Stout. “So it only seemed natural to turn their static star into a dancing star, with just a hint of the long pole it’s attached to at the top of that building.”

There are are other stars at OCU as well– star faculty and researchers, stars in the classroom, on the basketball court and star alumni in business, law and medicine. “The rebranding committee we assembled told me that the student body was made up of overachievers.” Says Stout, “That lead us to the notion of the rising star logo and to the simple tagline ‘Rise.’ to replace the more limiting ‘Where you’re a name, not a number’ tagline.”

The Pentagram team also updated OCU’s caps-and-small-caps wordmark with a contemporary Roman typeface called Romain, set in a more approachable upper- and lowercase, and downplayed the word “University” in a smaller sized sans-serif face, called Houschka Pro, in all caps.

“Oklahoma City is experiencing a bit of a Renaissance at the moment,” Says Stout, “Downtown is steadily getting refurbished, there’s a new Olympic rowing center and now they’ve got a championship NBA basketball team. OCU is the only university named after the state’s vibrant capitol, the largest city in Oklahoma, so we emphasized the name ‘Oklahoma City’, reduced the size of the word ‘University’ in the logotype and encouraged the school to hitch their wagon to the city’s newfound momentum whenever possible. Now the city, it’s namesake university and the high-kicking Rockettes can all rise up together.”

Project Team: DJ Stout, partner-in-charge and designer; Carla Delgado, designer.

Established in 2008, TaskRabbit is an online service that connects people (TaskPosters) who need something done and either don't have the time to do it, the desire to do it, or the expertise to do it with people (TaskRabbits) that have the time, desire, and expertise to do it — perhaps, too, the need (or want) for some extra cash. The premise is simple: say you have a wall that needs to be painted and you post it as a task and establish a fee you are willing to pay, then TaskRabbits bid to do the task by submitting their own fee and expertise, you choose and the person comes in and does the job. TaskRabbit is available in few cities at the moment, like New York, San Francisco, Austin, and Chicago and there are over 4,000 vetted TaskRabbits running around doing errands and jobs. This month, TaskRabbit introduced a new logo designed in-house.

"We wanted to simplify. Not only has our B2B product, TaskRabbit for Business, experienced rapid growth, but we've also seen an increase in users accessing our product via mobile devices. We tried modifying the earlier rabbit logo mark with some success, but realized that we needed a heftier shift in identity expression. The old rabbit posed some technical barriers, including readability at small sizes. Since changing the rabbit is a pretty significant design decision, we decided to take the opportunity to take a critical look at our visual expression and reevaluate the design as a whole." — TaskRabbit blog post

"Part of the reasoning behind redesigning the rabbit came from customer feedback about how TaskPosters and TaskRabbits perceived the brand. We did some research to gather these learnings and determined it was time to redefine the principle meaning behind TaskRabbit to evoke impressions of professionalism while sustaining a friendly and familiar demeanor." — TaskRabbit blog post

Thanks for clearing that up. Wasn't sure what part of the rabbit was based on circles.

As poorly drawn as the old rabbit was — weird changes in line thicknesses, a bag without straps, strange feet — it had a clear message: running around doing stuff, quickly. And the all lowercase, italic wordmark was anything but pretty. The new logo is an aesthetic improvement but takes away the instant message of the original. Now, the rabbit is sitting, static. It could be argued that it — the blog post hints the rabbit is a she and is internally called "Hazel" — is waiting patiently for her next task. But it's really not. It's just a rabbit now. A rabbit that lost her messenger bag, that differentiated it from other rabbits. It's better drawn in some respects: the line-work is better, but the hind leg becomes some kind of fox tail that seems to wrap under the body, while the puffy tail sits at top. Not sure what happened there. The rabbit also mostly just works against a green background where the circle that appears in the white background version is not visible, which looks kind of strange. The typography at first glance also looks like an improvement but the design team got a little carried away with customizing whatever that font used to be. They have swashed the "k" and "R", rounded one corner of the characters, chopped of the "t" on both sides, etc. Also, in application, they list Omnes and Source Sans Pro as primary typefaces with ITC Avant Garde Gothic as a secondary typeface… um, no. Unless you are being graphically ironic, you do not mix three sans serif fonts like that. I'm thinking I'll apply as a TaskRabbit and run the errand of selecting some typefaces for them.

Thanks to Joey Cordes for the tip.

Speakers, details, registration, and more are all now live for the 2013 Brand New Conference.

A few things: 1) Early-bird pricing will only be available for one month, ending on June 28. 2) Between speakers, sponsor-reserved tickets, and pre-sale registrants there are already 119 seats taken, less than 400 left. 3) An explanation of this year's hardcore identity can be found here.

Hope to see many of you there.

And many thanks to our sponsors who signed up for launch: School of Visual Arts - MPS in Branding, Squarespace, Neenah Paper, MailChimp, Monotype, and Hoefler & Frere-Jones.