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If there is anyone that learned the branding lesson imparted by the Obama ’08 Campaign, it was John McCain. During the Presidential race there was simply nothing the McCain identity could do to help his chances, especially not Optima, not even at its boldest. Not long after the loss, McCain announced in November of 2008 that he would be running for re-election to his Senate seat in 2010 for the state of Arizona. Earlier this year, McCain presented a new identity for this particular campaign, created by Phoenix-based OVO. What a difference one lost Presidential race makes.
"We crafted the entire brand to assist visually in developing a meaningful conversation between Senator McCain and the people of Arizona," stated OVO principal partner, Ryan Durant. "During the presidential campaign, many didn't feel as though the large-scale format emphasized the 'town hall' approach to politics for which McCain is so well known. The information architecture and design of the new Web site and brand identity provide for him a 'virtual town hall' so-to-speak."— Press Release

Apart from a new President, the Obama ’08 Campaign brought with it a new standard for political identity and we have slowly seen this shift happen with better crafted web sites and campaigns, even if some are mere copycats. McCain's Senate race identity is a perfect example of the new standard and manages to offer a unique personality and execution, even while using the default elements of stars, stripes and the RWB (red, white and blue) color palette. The new icon, dubbed the "McCain Flag" is a lovely abstraction of the flag that is both gentle and strong with its swift curves and thick stripes. The typography is also an excellent choice by having a somewhat traditional serif but feeling substantially contemporary by the serifs being strongly slabbed. Even the deeper interpretations of red and blue help make this a sophisticated identity.

While the identity and printed materials manage to build on the new expectations of political campaigns, the web site is also a notch above the usual. Designed and art directed by OVO, with architecture development and additional design by another Arizona agency, Forty, the site is easy to browse, energetic and welcoming. Overall, this is an unexpectedly refreshing identity and hopefully we will continue to see political identity mature and become an interesting challenge for designers.
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According to our Google Analytics, 58% of your are using a Macintosh Operating System, 39% are on Windows, 1.5% are logged as using the iPhone OS, and, finally, as the subject of today's post, 0.65% of you are reading this from a Linux Operating System. (Wow, 0.01% use Playstation 3!). The Linux platform, in contrast to that of Apple's and Microsoft's, is free and open source and has major street cred among hardcore developers and people that simply want a tinkerable alternative to the Mac vs. PC battle. Also, unlike its commercial brethren, various operating systems can operate in a Linux environment, and one of the most popular is Ubuntu — launched in 2004 by Canonical Ltd. and embraced by a growing community of users that contribute to its growth and evolution. Under a new brand vision of "Light" Ubuntu is preparing to change its identity this coming April.
The new style in Ubuntu is inspired by the idea of "Light".We're drawn to Light because it denotes both warmth and clarity, and intrigued by the idea that "light" is a good value in software. Good software is "light" in the sense that it uses your resources efficiently, runs quickly, and can easily be reshaped as needed. Ubuntu represents a break with the bloatware of proprietary operating systems and an opportunity to delight to those who use computers for work and play. More and more of our communications are powered by light, and in future, our processing power will depend on our ability to work with light, too.Visually, light is beautiful, light is ethereal, light brings clarity and comfort.— On Brand at the Ubuntu Wiki

As the cornerstone of the old and new identity is the "circle of friends," an icon showing three abstract human figures coming together to form a whole. A lovely concept. A terribly tired visual cliché. And, in this case, one tepidly executed and forgettable that has not evolved in the least for the new identity. What is worse is that now that it is significantly smaller in relationship to the typography, the shapes become indistinguishable. But let's assume that the "circle of friends" has enough equity within its community to survive at that size, then at least some technical assistance should have been provided to make it more readable and scalable — perhaps not to the exhausting degree of Firefox, but in that vein.

In terms of typography, I surprisingly liked the old one, or at least the combination of these particular letters, since the full font is kind of half-cooked. The new type is more techie and gadgety, rarely a good thing, and it doesn't quite work here, as it breaks the harmony of the characters with those pointed corners. And being so big, the typography would have to be so much more interesting than this.

In the Brand page of their Wiki, Ubuntu presents the new look along with some conceptual sketches of what the brand will look like and how the different members of its community can embrace the new identity. In either case, old and new, the whole is a mess of its parts. It's understandable that not everything has to follow a dictatorial style but these are so similar that they just don't gel together. I may be coming across as drastically critical of an open source project, but if the idea is that the power of the community can create something great, like software, then shouldn't the same be expected of their identity?

Thanks to KT for first tip.
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In dozens of years of watching the Oscars I had never cared about the outcome of the Best Animated Short Film, but this year it was different as in the running was a 16-minute film done almost entirely out of, literally, thousands of logos. Created by the French collective H5, and winner of the 2009 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, Logorama is not only a clever idea that brings to life some of the most ubiquitous marks of our time, but one that manages to exploit the meaning and conceptions we have of those marks and the brands behind them — whether it's the villain of the movie, Ronald McDonald, spouting "Loser" after the Enron logo drops from the sky, or "White Trash" when the Kmart logo follows it. Logorama is relentless in its inclusion of corporate, consumer and cultural icons and they become ever so vivid through a crude animation style that complements rather well the prickly language and chaotic plot, which is "Spectacular car chases, an intense hostage crisis, wild animals rampaging through the city and even more…". Images and a trailer for the short film have been floating around the web for the last few months and the full video has been spotted on and off. The official, legal video can be seen in some countries through iTunes for $1.99, and until further announcement it's also available at Vimeo (embedded below). [Boy, I haven't even posted this and the video is already gone; below are some screen captures and instead of buying a cup of coffee today, spend it on this movie, it's worth it]. There are plenty of memorable moments, so don't even dare to blink.

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Before it closed down for renovations in 2009, to reopen in 2011, the Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia suffered from lack of exposure. A quick look at the original website reveals all you need to know about the old brand. The brutish colors and default appearance reveal a small organization without much concern for engaging the audience. Compared to the other kid-friendly museums in Philadelphia like the Franklin Institute (whose original home was actually the Atwater Kent building), the Atwater Kent Museum is about as exciting as a textbook. Having visited the museum once in my elementary school class trips, I remember it as an old, austere space that contained just bunch of artifacts. Change was overdue.

Recently, the museum announced a name change to become The Philadelphia History Museum — with "At the Atwater Kent" suffixed at the bottom of the logo. Piloted by local branding firm 160over90, the move makes good sense considering how aloof and incommunicable "Atwater Kent Museum" sounds. With a new name comes a new logo. The logo is meant to be a nod to Philadelphia's notable street grid. That connection is somewhat of a reach, since shaky single lines are the opposite of what you'd usually get in a street map. Plus, line grids are so common that they don't normally call for a second glance to find any meaning.

As for the typography, custom drawn letters sit in the grid, forcing words together and breaking them unnaturally. A change of color from gray to blue helps with the mark's readability, though it's trendy in choice, like the grid itself. It wouldn't be surprising if this concept was the first and only idea sketched, with rationalization as an afterthought. Of course, that's not how the process was described.

The project's designer, Adam Garcia, began sketching versions of Philadelphia's grid. We all liked [the] hand drawn version, as it echoed Penn's original map while also containing the slight imperfections that make Philadelphia so unique and interesting. The final piece was adding type. And just like Philadelphia itself, that confining grid ended up giving the logo its distinctive character.[…]The odd word breaks convey Philly's inherent quirkiness, and the custom typeface pays homage to the city's rich printing and typographic history.— 160over90 blog

I'm not totally convinced. So the fact that it's custom drawn means that it pays homage to typographic history? If an existing typeface were used, you could say the same exact thing. That probably would've been a better solution, too. Here, the ambiguous, techie letters do nothing to communicate anything historic. Instead, the type is nothing more than a result of the unforgiving grid — a forced monospace design that ends up looking cold.

The new logo isn't horrible, but it all comes together, well, boringly. History involves storytelling, and that's where the logo falls flat. The only exciting part of the rebranding is the copy on the promotional materials. If only they weren't so disjointed from the logo's aesthetic, or vice versa. Gripes aside, an improvement to an underdeveloped brand is still an improvement. The museum isn't even open yet and already the new name has garnered it some publicity. Renovations are sure to make the space a more interesting experience. When it's complete, maybe I'll pay a visit.

Recently unveiled signage at the museum. Photo: Tom Ammon/160over90.

Kosal Sen is the founder of Philatype, and an art director at Sides Media where he spends most of his time on interactive design. He is the Philadelphia correspondent for Brand New.
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Les Mousquetaires (The Musketeers), is a leading French super and hypermarket chain founded in 1969, employing 130,000 people across Europe in over 4,000 stores, with a turnover of €35 million (US$47 million) in 2008. The name is, of course, a direct reference to Alexandre Dumas' 19th century novel about the adventures and escapades of a group of sword fighting, good living, soldier friends in the reign of Louis 13th of France. The Musketeers are synonymous of friendship, adventures and the good life in France and are part of popular culture, an association this supermarket has happily adopted.
The old identity was an incongruous, complex juxtaposition within a hexagon shape (which supposedly symbolises the map of France), of increasingly smaller Musketeers, and a small rendering of the name in a curved band, all reproduced in a slightly aggressive and very "discount feel" colour scheme of black and orange. I have seen this logotype for years in my travels throughout France and have always been astonished by its dated imagery, its questionable appropriateness for a supermarket logo and its visual confusion. Coinciding with their 40th anniversary, Les Mousquetaires created this new brand — created by Paris-based design agency Carré Noir, part of Publicis Group — in the early part of 2009 and in the last months of the year began implementing the changes.

The design objectives, to quote Jean-Philippe Chavatte, Associate Director of Carré Noir, are to "Communicate a genuine image of renewal, to simultaneously evoke dynamism, modernity and innovation" and to distance the negative connotations of the old brand: "The hexagon which does not correspond to the international dimension of the group, the cross which could be a barrier in certain countries and the Musketeers silhouette which is too nationalistic and basic an image." The new brand represents "the man, the entrepreneur" says Chavatte, communicating the spirit of this group of 3,000 independent store managers who own 100% of the group's capital. It expresses "Confidence and balance, force and determination and the vision of the independent entrepreneur." But enough for the press releases, now for the design.

What can I say? In the interests of fairness can I find anything positive to say about this work? Honestly, no. I have rarely, in my twenty years experience of working in branding design in Europe seen anything quite as disastrous as this. It has just been launched, and it already looks dated. And confusing. Is it inspired by a 1970s Olympics pictogram? Well, I have seen much better. Maybe Japanese Kanji and Hiragana inspiration? Consult a real calligrapher. Perhaps a motorway and bridge for a construction group? Again, I have seen much better in an industry that has less call for design, marketing and communications.

This is a meaningless collection of curves now that the Musketeer has been killed off. The graphic treatment of the curves and swooshes are all different creating a disturbing visual conflict and lack of cohesion. The positive/negative space relationship is uncomfortable. How will this work on a dark background or on supermarket signage? The typestyle is a small but inelegant improvement but remains so small as to be hardly legible in print. It has managed to preserve its old aggressiveness. And there is no communication of "renewal or the entrepreneur's spirit." This is a predictable, uninspiring and characterless mark that communicates virtually nothing. I am amazed that a leading branding agency is capable of producing work like this today and getting away with it. Or that a major industry player can select such work and endorse it.

But it doesn't end there. Intermarché is a chain of supermarkets and hypermarkets owned by the Les Mousquetaires group, which has also dramatically changed its identity. The old logotype combined the Musketeers icon with a bold all capitals rendering of the name in orange and black, continuing the discount feel. Whereas the new Musketeers signature is in lowercase with capital "E"s, the new Intermarché brand is lowercase with capital "R"s. The typography has some of the same disturbing characteristics of the Musketeer brand: a combination of curves and angular shoulders. The inverted "a" for the "e" and the tapering stroke on the "R" (a reminder of the sword?) all add to the uncomfortable feeling.

The differentiation of type and size of store: Super, Hyper, Contact and Express is spelled out in a narrow black rule with a gradation and changes typestyle with each store type: bold caps, light lowercase italics and even a script for Contact, the local neighbourhood store. I hope the consumers can make sense of all this because I, as a branding creative director, am pretty lost. And in terms of strategy, coherence, design quality and visual standards, things can't get much worse.

Thanks to Benoît Champy for the tip.

Paul Vickers is a corporate branding, product branding and packaging Creative Director and Consultant with extensive international experience at six of the world's leading agencies: Pentagram London, Design Solution London & Paris, Interbrand New York, Dragon Rouge Paris, Desgrippes Gobé Hong Kong & Tokyo. Paul is British, bilingual and lives in Paris. He is an international correspondent for Brand New.
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Melbourne Heart FC is a soccer team that will begin competing in the A-League during the upcoming 2010/11 season, and, until recently, lacked a concrete name and identity. Soccer has a strange place within Australian sporting culture. In spite of the relative success of our national team at the last World Cup, and the increase in popularity with the introduction of the A-League in 2004, the world game has always been the bridesmaid to the brides of the other (more successful) Australian football codes. Melbourne, in particular, is a hard place for new team to succeed — with 9 out of 16 AFL teams, and highly successfully rugby and soccer teams — any new sports franchise that enters into such a saturated market has to hit the ground running.

With that in mind, the Melbourne Heart identity does a lot right. And a few things… less right. While we are often (rightly) quick to dismiss crowd sourcing as a blight upon the design industry, I think that when it comes to local sports teams we can make an exception — if anything is meant to represent a grass roots community, local teams are it. Local tabloid the Herald Sun ran a competition to name the new team. From four choices — Melbourne Heart FC, Sporting Melbourne FC, Melburnians, and Melbourne Revolution — shortlisted after the competition, Heart won. However, the name has been mired in opposition by two entities: First, the Australian Football League (AFL) which claimed that the only team capable of using the words "Australian," "Football," and "Club" was the city's rugby team, Melbourne Football Club. The second came from the Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation, which holds an annual "Heart of Melbourne Appeal" for the homeless. It remains to be seen whether this name and identity will stick around for long.

The logo itself, created by brand agency Elmwood, is bold and iconic, and offers a neat visual representation of the name. The colour is quite nice and the gradients actually work pretty well, although reproducing them on a kit could be difficult. The shield motif is appropriate, and references a long tradition of other soccer teams, while still managing to look contemporary. It seems that a large part of the design was focused around creating a rivalry with the other local club, Melbourne Victory — thus the choice of colour to imply a red vs. blue dynamic.

However, trying to integrate the shield and heart, while also avoiding heart-shaped visual clichés, has led to a slightly clunky solution — there's none of that soccer elegance. The use of the large "M" to signify Melbourne is getting a little old, too. Surely there are better ways of representing our fine city? Additionally, the attempt to meld together "M" and "H" into a single form defined by counterspace doesn't work — the H actually ends up being a pair of rugby goalposts. Not to mention the weird little dongle… thing. The choice of Gotham for the logotype seems very fashionable now, but I wonder, given the popularity of the typeface, how long it will remain that way.

The logo in press conference action. Way to work the red and white palette guys! Image source.

Overall, this is an identity that seeks to integrate itself firmly with the community as quickly as it can, and as far as football club identities go, this is far from the worst out there. But as an isolated piece, it doesn't work as well as it could.

Thanks to Jo-Ryan Salazar for the tip.

Chris Thorpe is a freelance graphic designer in Melbourne, Australia. He blogs at Convert to Shape and Twitters under the same name. He is an international correspondent for Brand New.
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Argos is the largest general merchandise and home retailer in the UK with a network of 750 stores throughout Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Known mostly for a catalogue-based selling system, Argos is a multi-channel retailer that lays claim to a 30-year heritage and defined by a unique retail experience. Argos is a high volume, fast-paced and highly effective commercial goods delivery mechanism, servicing more than 130 million customers per year and boasting an annual turnover over £4 billion (US$6 billion). A lightweight brand, Argos is most certainly not.
The front of a typical Argos store is filled with low cost, slightly tacky but modern and organically designed product selection stations, displaying doorstop-sized catalogues and often jam-packed with shoppers brandishing pens on strings to jot down product numbers and quantities on predetermined forms. Goods are then collected at the rear of the store from a small army of uniformed staff summoning up products from large hidden conveyor supplied storage areas or delivered by trucks from larger warehouses later at home.

In addition to furiously busy retail outlets, the Argos website gets heavy traffic with daily traffic averages of 1.3 million hits. The Argos brand trades deeply on economies of scale, accessibility and ubiquity, and customers are encouraged not just to shop for it but to "Argos it." Given the phenomenal success of such an established brand embraced by the masses it made sense to give the identity a makeover.

This is a total brand refresh steered and created by The Brand Union, who appear to have refined the positioning to a more personal "family retailer," despite it's mass consumer status. "Mass-personal" is perhaps an appropriate description of the approach, inspired by the mass customizations available from online brands such as Amazon. A brand that carries perhaps the most inspired smile and against which all brand smiles should be compared. For yet again we are faced with a smiling brand in Argos.

Far from just a logo update this is a complete overhaul of the entire Argos brand identity, led by the strategic idea of "a brand for everyone." In comparison to the typographically contorted previous brandmark, on the surface the new Argos brandmark is clean, legible and smart, and the overall presentation of the brand appears orderly and well thought-out.

Or, perhaps not entirely so well thought out… the "Helping you live for less" brandline is potentially a hidden demon waiting to be revealed. From it we understand an appropriate "spend less money and get more value" interpretation but a more troubling reading would be "helping you to live to expect less". This may explain why on the website the brandline is tidied away in a footer.

Given the extensive market penetration and the strength of the Argos brand making it more generic is perhaps a creative opportunity missed. At least in all its typographic naivety the previous brandmark had a distinctive identity. The new identity is unmistakably modern and a step forward from a brand management perspective but the newfound clarity comes at the expense of uniqueness. The evolution of the brandmark into a discrete smile makes some sense. At least it's a clear idea but it is an idea that is conceptually flat and creatively barren. Argos has been de-cluttered, sanitised and corporatised. The business machine behind the brand has been more consciously and overtly articulated; no longer a faceless mechanism but now sporting a mechanical face.

Argos has been thoroughly rationalised. Everything about the new brand identity makes a little too much sense. Super refinement criticisms of the drawing of the mark are probably wasted. Sure, the type is a little squidgy and the weight a touch too heavy but arguably this helps to make an otherwise clinical and mechanical brand appear more personable and friendly. The arch on the left edge of the "A" is a nice touch but let's face it we're looking at yet another clichéd sort-of-face in a logo; a broad and bland smile, vacant eyes somewhere in the counter-forms and a nose conveniently formed by the "gs" descender. Creating a brand personality doesn't literally mean create a face in the logo.

Otherwise, there is not much to fault in this brand refresh. There aren't any obvious problems but it's hard not to shake the feeling that a unique insight was waiting to be discovered and celebrated, that a little brand magic was to be had somewhere and that, perhaps, a facile decision-maker chose the safest option.

Perhaps a distinctive name is enough of a differentiator for a brand of this stature and caliber. Most of Argos' customers are probably too busy gorging on goods to realise that anything's changed. They might notice that something is different but they probably couldn't say what exactly. Perhaps on this occasion a "nice" design, generic brand identity idea and an inane brand personality are all that's required.

Next in line please…

Thanks to KK Lapper for first tip.

Andrew Sabatier is a UK-based Brand Identity Designer specialising in brand identity origination and design with a brandmark-led approach to articulating brand strategy. Over ten years experience conceptualising brands for brand consultancies and direct clients. He is an international correspondent for Brand New.
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Caixa Sabadell has handled all my banking for the past five years or so. Although I've been quite satisfied with their service overall, I have become increasingly irritated by the lack of cashpoints available. So, when informed that the bank was merging with three other Catalan banks, I was hoping this would result in an improved service and especially more free-of-charge ATMs. However, earlier this year, my local office was suddenly closed down and now it seems resources have instead been spent on rolling out a new umbrella brand for the four banks involved in the new merger. Even if the merger would result in more cashpoints, having seen the first examples of the new brand image, I'm not too sure I would like to be seen using one.
The new brand, called Unnim, is the result of the fusion of four relatively small Catalan banks: Caixa Girona, Caixa Manlleu, Caixa Sabadell, and Caixa Terrassa. For Spanish readers, a press statement is available here. Each of these banks have taken their name from their Catalan city of origin and largely operate within their respective geographical area. Indeed, as we shall see, the territorial aspects are of major importance in this new merger in many ways. First being that the name itself has a definite Catalan ring to it.

The name Unnim stems from a conjugation of the word "unir," which translates as "unite." However, most probably for naming copyright and trademark issues, an additional twin "n" has been added to the word to make it more unique. In a statement by Morillas, the Barcelona-based agency in charge of designing the new brand, we find a (retro-fitted?) motivation for the added "n" claiming the four repeated arches of the two lowercase "n" and the "m" represent the territorial and historical "bridges" that link the four merging banks.

An interesting aspect of the new brand is that it will be known as UnnimCaixa in 75% of the commercial network while in the historical geographic area within which each bank operates the new brand is grafted onto the old name, leaving us with the less-than-legible UnnimCaixaGirona, UnnimCaixaManlleu, UnnimCaixaSabadell and UnnimCaixaTerrassa.

The old logotypes of the four banks were all quite forgettable and so the design of the new moniker has understandably been motivated by ideas of a completely new design paradigm to make Unnim more contemporary, more visible and — as is now standard in any new bank identity — friendlier. Unfortunately, the design solution feels both derivative and poorly executed.

The wordmarks are set in FF Max. Though I may have some reservations to the typeface choice, I guess it works in the sense that its letterforms with their lack of stems on "u" and "n" help emphasize the idea of four arches. Indeed, the arches are reminiscent of the low arch made of plain bricks that is also known as "timbrel vault" or "Catalan vault" and which is a prominent feature in Catalan architecture. While the typeface might feel a bit at odds with the organic shape(s) of the logotype, what bothers me more is that both the word Unnim and the individual bank names suffer from bad kerning. One would expect a much better execution in such a high-profile job.

The logo itself is as a poorly imagined and badly executed version of the recent crop of soft and colorful organic shapes. The shape is obviously a "U" for Unnim while also doubling as a "C" for Catalonia. Not surprisingly, the dominant colors are red and yellow — the colors of both the Spanish and Catalan flags. Examining the logotype further, we soon find some difficult-to-explain incongruities. At first, the logotype seems a composite of three overlapping shapes of the colors yellow, red and cyan that when combined create a spectrum of colors. However, in the bowl of the shape, there's a cyan-colored area that being overlapped by yellow really should be green. Now, since there are four banks merging, it would seem logical that there should be four colors and four shapes. Looking at a still, below, taken from an animated version of the logotype (see video above), we do find that's the case.

There are indeed four shapes, each an amorphous "u" painted in cyan, red, yellow and green respectively. But superimposed they just makes no sense whatsoever as the overprinting of colors is sometimes applied and sometimes not. Ignoring these logical lapses, the real problem with the logotype is that nothing is revealed nor happening in the resulting composite. Individually, the shapes just look randomly drawn with no particular structure. And when they are so unimaginatively superimposed, well, if ever there was a case of "less than the sum of its parts," this is it. One would hope that the further meaning of this logo will be conveyed or articulated when applied in context, but for now, it doesn't add to much.

On Unnim's temporary website we can see a first sample of the logotype combined with the tagline — set in FF Olsen:

For whatever reason, the tagline is set all in lowercase and really doesn't line up to anything. Apparently, white has been designated the corporate color, but this is bordering on the ridiculous and the tagline simply seems to be floating in empty space. It is not enough using obvious historical and geographical references when ignoring to point towards a clearly articulated vision to take Unnim to a new place on what I believe is a crowded market suffering from an all-time low in confidence. Compared to the recent re-branding of Bankinter, to use another Spanish bank as an example, this effort tries to address too many targets, misses most of them, and suffers from poor execution.The tagline reads 'la caja que suma' which can be translated as 'the bank that adds up'. Unfortunately, so far Unnim doesn't.

Thanks to Stephanie Wurm for the tip.

Fredrik Jönsson is a Swedish designer living and working in Barcelona, Spain.He is the founder of Ummocrono, a design studio working primarily with visual identities and interactive design.
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When it comes to coffee retail chains, it's easy to think of Starbucks as the number one, but who exactly is number two? Until this morning, as I sipped my Starbucks coffee, I would have never guessed it was Caribou Coffee, with nearly 500 locations in 16 U.S. states (compared to the 11,000-plus of Starbucks). Originally established in Minneapolis in 1992, Caribou's main presence is in the Midwest and some lower East Coast states. I have, literally, gone into a Caribou only once in Atlanta and it was a fairly convincing experience as the brand relies heavily in a kind of ski lodge environment and look that makes you feel cozy and warm. The coffee wasn't bad either. Over the weekend, Caribou announced a new identity crated by Minneapolis-based Colle+McVoy.
When approaching the logo redesign, we didn't want to lose the important equities of the previous logo, so the new logo still includes a leaping caribou, a shield and the words "Caribou Coffee." What has changed, however, is the look: from a Northern lodge theme to a fresh variation of the same elements, now rooted in natural textures and fluid graphics."Because coffee is the heart and soul of our company, the body of the caribou is formed out of a coffee bean. In addition, the caribou's antlers now form the shape of the letter 'C'." Another significant change in the logo is the direction of the caribou's leap. While the Caribou in the previous logo was leaping left, the caribou now leaps right, signifying the direction the company is heading -- into the future."The shield element has been updated to resemble the shape of traditional national park signage. This is a nod to our founders' hike in Alaska's Denali National Park, where they were inspired to start the company," said Alfredo Martel, senior vice president of marketing for Caribou Coffee.— Press Release

There are things to like and things to dislike in this refresh. The overall impact is indeed beneficial, as the old look and feel, well, it looked and felt right out of the 1990s with the chunky strokes and distress-ey typography. The handwritten "Caribou" follows today's trends of the handcrafted and personal, so in a decade or two it might feel trite, but for now it works, especially in contrast with the über stoic use of Futura by Starbucks. The readability of the "a" is a little questionable, but the rest of the letters look as if a sophisticated lumberjack had scribbled them on a diner while eating pancakes — and I mean that as a compliment. The caribou itself is not as convincing and it's trying too hard to carry meaning: Its body is a coffee bean! The antlers make a "C"! The shield is like a park sign! The angle of the jump signifies the expected revenue of 2010! Okay, I made that last one up, but in trying to do too many things with the icon, it becomes a little bit of an amorphous jumble.

The new color palette is a vast improvement, I love the light blue and brown combo and it works great to separate Caribou further from Starbucks. The continued use of handwritten typography in the packaging is also nice, but I again wonder if it will be too much of the same as the brand attempts to sustain itself over the next few years — and the combination of quirky messages and scribbles has been more genuinely executed by the much, much smaller Puccino's, and it's also reminiscent of some of the materials produced by Quicksilver in recent years. Nevertheless, Caribou needed a refresh badly and this is the right kind of direction and execution.

Thanks to Nate Mueller for first tip.
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If you have some time to kill between now and Monday (or any day after that actually) perhaps you would like to test your brand awareness by taking The Brand Quiz, a fairly difficult challenge that asks you to name a brand based on two color hints and two ambiguous hints. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit I only scored 14/21, but I had a root canal and wisdom tooth pulled out on Tuesday, so I'm pretty sure something, somewhere got dislodged in the process. If you think you can do 21/21 there is still the challenge of doing it in less time than your opponents. The quiz has been put together by London-based VYRE.

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Originally established in 1883, the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) is one of the largest, and oldest, museums in the United States, with more than 50,000 works of art in its collection housed in a 150-plus-acre area. Various components make up the IMA: There is the Lilly House and Gardens, a 26-acre historic estate and house museum; the 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park, an art park that includes untamed woodlands, wetlands, meadows and a 35-acre lake; the Toby, a 558-seat theater for film, talks and performances; the Miller House, a mid-century residence designed by Eero Saarinen with interiors by Alexander Girard, located off campus in Columbus; and, finally, the Indianapolis Museum of Art itself, which renders the odd and redundant designation of "Indianapolis Museum of Art IMA." Clearly, a large organization with a lot of related parts. And to make sense of all of them, IMA worked with Pentagram partner Abbott Miller — an Indiana native, for those looking for authenticity and street cred — to create a new identity.

Let's talk first about the main museum lock-up that helps introduce the visual language that then permeates the rest of the entities. The most obvious thing that you will either love or hate is the aggressive cropping of the word "Indianopolis" by slicing the second "A" in half and splitting it into two lines. I happen to love this. First, it resolves the issue of such a long word throwing everything off. Second, it can serve as a reminder that this museum is located in Indianapolis, Indiana by isolating that first line. And lastly, well, I just think it looks cool and adds a certain edge to the museum. The lock-up with the IMA acronym is where things get a little unbalanced, and there is an unresolved relationship between the two elements and their colors, sizes and letter-spacing. After you see the chart of the whole program, below, come back to this and see if it makes any difference to you.

For better or for worse, I maintain a heavy load of work lodged in my brain and whenever I see something new, I inevitably sift through all that visual debris for references, and when I first looked at this logo it reminded me of the work Abbott Miller did for Architect magazine in 2006. And rightly so, since the type choice is the same, Taz by Lucas de Groot. It's a fine choice for both instances, but I just had to mentally make the division between the two. Luckily, absoluelty none of the thousands of visitors to IMA will have the same problem I did.

When you see the relationship between all the elements is when you are able to grasp just how complicated this standardization exercises can really be, and how the whole is, if not more, just as important as the parts. The chart above also shows a quick view of what lock-ups work well small and which don't and it also helps emphasize the need for a simple visual solution and in this case, the type choice has such an interesting personality that it helps tie everything together. Simply browsing through the IMA web site you get a sense of the identity design and it's all achieved through these lock-ups and the deployment of Taz over and over. The overall effect of this identity gives the IMA a fresh and almost provocative personality that the old logo simply couldn't. Ever.

Thanks to Gautam Rao for the tip.
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"It is the policy of the United States," reads the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) web site, "to deploy as soon as is technologically possible an effective National Missile Defense system capable of defending the territory of the United States against limited ballistic missile attack (whether accidental, unauthorized, or deliberate)." That policy will be $1.2 billion short starting this year, as President Obama announced cost cuts last fall to a missile defense system plan that had been instated by the George Bush administration in 2002. Needless to say, with every Obama critic looking for any excuse to go on the offensive, this decision certainly had vociferous opposition — all perfectly acceptable as long as it's within reason and rationalization. As opposed to, for example, the latest spewing of inanity that the new logo of the MDA is a sign that Obama and its administration are in cahoots with the Islamic populace and are giving Iran free reign to launch missiles willy nilly.
A slew of online publications are genuinely upset that the MDA logo looks like a combination of the Obama '08 campaign logo and the star and crescent moon symbol of Islam. Others have thrown in the Iranian Space Agency logo and the Soviet Union's hammer and sickle flag, all as part of a series of codes that determine the agenda of the Obama administration. I threw in the Boeing logo just for kicks — hey, someone has failed to point out a corporate villain in all of this — and I also added perhaps the biggest oversight by the media, the use of Trajan. Cue Twilight Zone theme song.

Conspiracy theory diagram.

I will never state that Obama is a Muslim, until I see him on his knees praying to Allah, but even if he is not the results would be basically the same. He is as pro-Islamic as they come and this symbol is a disgrace to America, as it is a hybrid of an Obama-Islamic crescent symbol. We are in serious trouble my friends!— Loganswarning

Dear MDA:Your new logo is wholly offensive and must be removed for these reasons:First, it is Obama-esce, reminiscent of his campaign artwork. This is unseemly and smacks of a cult of personality.Second, the play on the Islamic Crescent is sinister, disturbing and outrageous.I am requesting a reply to this comment and will seek redress at every level possible. This should be removed and never reconstituted for this or any other government program.Concerned citizen— Commenter on Loganswarning

This is hitleresque…— Commenter on Loganswarning

What could be code-breaking evidence of the latter explanation is to be found in the newly-disclosed redesign of the Missile Defense Agency logo (above). As Logan helpfully shows, the new MDA shield appears ominously to reflect a morphing of the Islamic crescent and star with the Obama campaign logo. (For a comparison, the previous logo is below.)— Frank Gaffney, Big Government

Could TMP Government possibly come up with something else that does not seem to remind people of an American campaign long finished or a space agency whose nation's [Iran] leader is a tyrant that wants to see our country's demise? […] If a governmental agency's logo begins to look scarily like a presidential campaign theme, even if done unintentionally, that is a problem and should be corrected immediately.— Kerry Picket, Washington Times

I may be overly flippant about this, because it really is all ridiculous — slightly more ridiculous than those that said the new Pepsi logo looked like the Obama logo. If there is anything at fault with the new logo, it's simply that it's crappy. Granted, not as crappy as the previous one, which looks only a notch above Atari's 1980s Missile Command, but still poorly executed. The logo was designed by TMP Government, an agency dedicated to designing for this particular niche. It must be pointed out that the new logo does not replace the old logo, at least not yet and I wouldn't be surprised if it's a slow replacement — right now, the new logo lives as the primary one on the web site, with the old logo appearing on the footer. Confusing, yes. The new logo is probably a tool to make the MDA look a little more sexy, make of that what you will, and TMP created a series of print ads and online games to make the agency more interesting for recruiting.

Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency, dismissed the comparison entirely."It's ridiculous," Lehner told Fox News. "It isn't a new logo to replace the official logo. It's a logo developed for recruiting materials and for our public Web site. Also, it was used prior to the 2008 election and it has no link to any political campaign."— FOXNews.com

Print ads by TMP Government.

Engineer trading cards — seriously — by TMP Government.

Hopefully we can get back to more important issues, like Tiger Woods' apologies and curling, and stop looking for shapes in clouds.

Thanks to Noah Rothschild for first tip.
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