branding + identity

The old saying goes that there are two constants in life, death and taxes. But were we to revise the list, we would say "death, taxes, and the legal battle between George Lucas and Andrew Ainsworth." You might recall our last post about that new addition toward the end of 2008, when a lawsuit was finally settled between the two, with Ainsworth, the designer of the original Stormtrooper costume from Star Wars, being found by the British court to have broken US copyright laws by continuing to sell replicas of the outfits without Lucas' permission. But it wasn't a total victory, as the judge also ruled that Ainsworth wouldn't have to pay any fines and he still hadn't broken any intellectual property laws in the UK. Now, because this issue will likely go on forever, Lucas' team has decided to try again in court by claiming the Stormtrooper attire are pieces of art and thus, copies should be punishable by British law and Ainsworth will need to shut down and pay up. It should make for an interesting trial, given Ainsworth's hand in the original creation of the works of art in question.

In just these past couple of years, we've seen some massive-undertaking redesigns from Starbucks getting back to their roots to McDonald's faux Arne Jacobs move, and even from companies like Motel 6. So it only seemed a matter of time before another biggie joined the fold. Sure enough, Burger King is the next in line for a complete makeover. We first told you about a test redesign in Houston the fast-food giant had undertaken back in early June, but now Ad Age has a look at the final-final concept that should start sweeping out across their burger empire over the next few years. It doesn't look entirely different from what we'd seen those few months back, with those more rounded edges and light-grey and red serving as the predominant colors, but maybe a bit more toned down and less "sports bar" than the earlier test model. Here's a description:

The design, which Burger King describes as "contemporary industrial," has a palette of white, black and black -- with flame designs -- and brick and concrete finishes. The company maintains that the atmosphere will "encourage intimate and engaging dining."

We're assuming that that "palette of white, black and black" is a typo. Whatever the palette, the first finished redesign update was done at "the chain's highest grossing" location, in Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport (who knew?) and will cost each location "between $300,000 to $600,000 per restaurant." While that's a high fee, apparently all that encouragement of intimate and engaging dining should fetch double-digit increases in sales for each unit.

It's the Americans vs. the Australians again in a battle over branding, but this time it isn't Katy Perry vs. Katie Perry. Nope, this one finds computer giant Apple going after the Woolworths Supermarkets chain (unrelated to one we're familiar with in the US) over their now year-old rebranding effort which uses the shape of an apple to form the letter W. Apple apparently finds this a bit too close to their own iconic apple, particularly in that Woolworths has wandered into more tech-y merchandise at times, and as such, have decided to take the fight to Australian courts. Here's a bit about the rumble down under from the Aussie perspective:

Since it unveiled its new logo a year ago, Woolworths has been at pains to avoid using the word ''apple'' in commentary.

The man who designed it, Hans Hulsbosch, said Apple was taking trademark protection ''to the extreme''. ''Based on this logic, they would have to take action against every fruit-seller.''

All of this follows a suit early last year the company brought against the city of New York over a new GreeNYC logo.

Everything we know about Reno we learned from The Wizard, the 1989 film that starred Fred Savage as the brother of a socially awkward video game savant: it's "the biggest little city in the world," awash in neon, and the perfect backdrop for a Nintendo commercial masquerading as a movie. Twenty years later, Reno's charming old nickname has gone the way of Duck Hunt, and the city's tourism board is looking to improve upon the tagline used since 2002: "America's Adventure Place." The latest proposal? "Reno: A Little West of Center." Mayor Bob Cashell was not amused. "It embarrasses the city of Reno," he said last week. "I don't like that." For others, the suggested slogan was downright confusing. According to the Associated Press, Glenn Carano, marketing director of the Silver Legacy casino in downtown Reno, said it gave him "a little heartburn," adding, "I don't know what it means" (the slogan, presumably, not the heartburn). Now it's back to the drawing board to devise a new slogan for a marketing and advertising campaign slated to launch early next year.

Matthew Carter's plummy Yale typeface continues its serifed march through New Haven. It's latest convert? The distinctive Yale University Press logo, designed in 1985 by Paul Rand. As reported yesterday by The Yale Daily News and noted by Armin Vit on Brand New, the Yale University Press has begun phasing out the distinctive Rand logo in favor of a straight-up "Yale" (in the Yale typeface). It's reportedly an effort to unite the university and the press, which were once separate entities. If the goal is truly one of institutional harmony, Chris Rubino has devised an even better solution with the design compromise pictured at right. "I was disappointed to see the old Paul Rand logo replaced with the innocuous Yale logo," the designer tells us. "So I decided to Frankenstein them together to give a little nod to history. I hate seeing these things vanish."

This year has seen a lot of anger over re-branding efforts, from Tropicana's ill-fated container redesign to the flare up over Pepsi's multi-million dollar logo redo. Though it's been a few months since these hot outbursts, they certainly haven't gone away completely. We turn to something on a slightly smaller scale, but fun and topical none the less. In Bristol, hometown of street artist Banksy, the city council decided to spend millions of pounds in rebuilding the local industrial museum, technically "The Museum of Bristol" but known familiarly and on pieces of advertising as "M Shed." From that big pile of money, they'd set aside some to work with ad agency True North in order to come up with some sort of exciting new brand. Months later, what did they come up with? That's right: "M Shed." Their bill? £100,000. This has locals up in arms, asking why their tax dollars went into a project only to have the same name come out, and the city council responding in a sort of "It's been decided. Deal with it." fashion:

"The review is still on-going, however, the re-branding has been agreed and is going ahead.

"It will give the new museum a distinct identity and, at the same time demonstrate its direct relationship to the council's other, excellent museums, galleries and archives."

To be fair, we haven't read if the fee covered just the re-naming or also included design work, which would make this a whole different story, to be sure. Though judging from the response and the involvement by taxpayer activist groups, it does seem a little like that was the entirety of what was included in the fee.

Just shy of a year ago, you might recall reading here about Jerry Dior's quest to get credit for designing the iconic Major League Baseball logo (or maybe that split-second of controversy following the story over who really designed it). Now, after nearly a full rotation around the sun when the story first started circulating, and 40 of these rotations since the logo made it first appearance, Dior is finally getting his due, with the MLB this week recognizing him as the original designer. And for this, he was honored on the field yesterday at Yankee Stadium and will be again tomorrow at Citi Field. It's a sweet story and we're glad it all ended up positively. Here's a bit:

With the recognition of Dior as the logo's originator comes the answer to a question that has puzzled fans and journalists alike over the years: On which player is the silhouette based?

"People have said my design was based on Harmon Killibrew, but it wasn't," said Dior. "Mine wasn't based on anyone -- just a nondescript figure with a bat."

Following Glenn Beck's much-discussed transformation from political commentator to art historian, the LA Times Christopher Knight has returned to critiquing right-wing design critiques (his first was over Rush Limbaugh's claim that President Obama's new health care logo was Nazi-like) by going after the logo for the Beck-affiliated 9-12 Project, a rally this past weekend in Washington D.C. Unfortunately, despite all of Beck's cries against the supposed communist messages embedded in the Rockefeller Building in New York, the 9-12 group doesn't really seem to mind putting them in their own pieces of work, as its hard to deny the origins of the thrusted fists they use in their "Taxpayers March on DC" logo. With great detail, Knight gives this logo as much attention as Beck had given the Rockefeller, making for a very fun read. All of this is entirely petty, for sure, but isn't most of what goes on in politics? And who doesn't like seeing Knight fight back?

Update: Turns out that Knight had it a bit wrong. While Beck was one of the leaders behind this past weekend's rally, he was not behind the logo itself.

A new online database promises to help designers avoid cases of mistaken identity. The Identity Archives Project (IdAP) aims to be "the most complete online keyword-searchable database of logos and brand identity designs from around the world." Developed by San Francisco graphic designer Gabe Ruane, IdAP is a free resource that relies upon the contributions of designers and branding gurus. Active or antiquated logos, logotypes, icons, brand identities, brand marks, and corporate identities are all fair game, providing that they were approved by the client, have been used publicly, and are submitted by their creators. The key, however, is in the keywords, on which the value—and searchability—of the database will depend. Ruane advises those submitting designs to consider subjective and conceptual aspects, including the emotions a logo conveys, whether it's masculine or feminine, and what it represents. "Don't hold back!" He notes on the site. "The more info you can associate with the logo design, the better!"

Moving out of China now, but expanding on the briefly-mentioned IKEA, we turn to the big story passing around these webs of ours this weekend. You've likely seen some mention of this somewhere, but the AP offers a nice recap of the uproar over the furniture chain's decision to move from Futura to Verdana for its latest catalog, the first type change the company has made in nearly half a decade. The big issue is that a) Verdana was created for computer monitors, not the printed page and b) (at least in our view) Verdana was created by Microsoft, who companies will always catch flak for when working with anything even remotely connected to them (except the Xbox, of course). It's all gotten a little ridiculous, with petitions asking IKEA to return to Futura, sites like Typophile writing "For me it's a sad day" (though an interesting discussion follows in the comments for sure). In short, it's a little like the absurdity from earlier this year over Tropicana's rebranding. We agree that their catalogs don't look as good as before, but when was the last time high-minded designers were defending IKEA? Isn't IKEA the death of all good design? Shouldn't everyone who passed around that "IKEA isn't sustainable" article from a few weeks back be happy that they're making bad decisions and it's going to result in type and design folks refusing to shop there in protest?