Brand New

Ok, so as someone that walked this path and is currently on the other end as a freelance graphic and web designer, i'll put out a brain dump. # Development 1. For web development, you'll find tons of best practices (i.e. alistapart, smashingmag, diveintohtml5, etc). This is the easy part, you can browse these or skim them whenever you get bored. HTML is pretty straightforward, but css is a bit trickier. 1.5. An too-long aside on css. CSS is one of the most important things to try to master as you actually start implementing design. CSS is pretty gross, it's alright and not that difficult, but it's gross and it's nearly always a mess. There are lots of frameworks around that try to remedy this, but i recommend that you actually try to figure much of it out before you start adopting frameworks. Similarly, before you use a css reset, you should actually try doing some work without them (the big problem is that each browser's default css is rendered inconsistently, so you make some assumption about webkit and find that opera and mozilla think you're a fool). EXERCISE ZERO: try to see if you actually understand a) the box model and b) floats and c) positioning. These are the trickiest things. You can only really understand these if you try to figure out how you would use any of these things in practice. I put up a page with some stuff about those topics when i was teaching a web design class recently: http://risd.generic.cx/review.html # Design 2. Learn typography. This is…

There's this great blog for Logo changes: https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/ You have to subscribe to read the articles now, but just looking at the thumbnails is fun enough

Congrats on the 1k subscribers! I personally would feel violated if i subbed to a newsletter and suddenly it was behind a paywall of $8 a month. Brand New [0] did the same a while back, but for a much much lower price. And they offer their whole website with a massive history and daily updates for $2 a month or $20 a year. I would personally try to find a sponsor instead of hiding your content that your 1k subscribers signed up for behind a paywall. A sponsor for a newsletter is IMHO a very normal thing. [0] https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/subscribe

I pay a subscription to Brand New[1], which is a blog about branding and design. Sometimes the best content is in the comments. It also creates a sense of community. That blog is definitely niche, but you see people with your type of interests and ideas commenting there. [1] https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/

That "://" logo would be one year old. [1] And yeah, it does look stale already. I appreciate thoughtful design, but IMO the frequency of redesigns of Mozilla branding/subbranding/websites/subdomains only communicates a sense of vanity at this point. The visual schizophrenia between trustworthy software developer and NGO doesn't help. [1] https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_for_mozi…

The old one or the new one? I like the subtle "heart" shape in the new one, especially the animation, to implicitly persuade me to love IBM. http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_and_ident…

That's a problem that can be solved easily just by having a good and cheap city bike system. Oslo is also really hilly and the weather isn't the best, but since the city bike system was revamped in 2016 biking has exploded here. https://oslobysykkel.no/en One thing I really like about the Oslo system is how startup-like it is, unlike a lot of other systems which feel arcane. The apps are flawless (there's no card), the design profile is fantastic [1], the bikes are good and light and they do a good job of communication [2]. [1] http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_and_ident… [2] https://www.facebook.com/bysykkeloslo/videos/1448346241855498/

Instagram had a similar redesign recently. http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/hand_beats_filter_… I recommend subscribing to the Brand New blog if you're interested in logo redesigns. (They got the news about MailChimp weeks ago.)

This is mostly about the transition to SVG, not really a "brand evolution". The new logo is fine, not that much better or worse than any of the other variations shown. I don't get the hoopla. I like what Wolff Olins did for Firefox OS and would love to see Mozilla take major new steps in that direction, with more radical changes to the logo (which frankly has always looked like a shrimp at favicon size): http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/mozilla_to_mobile_…

Reminds me of the uproar here at Aalto University over the winning entry[0] for the design contest and the final logo[1]. [0]: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/aalto_university_a… [1]: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/follow_up_aalto_un…

The best site used by graphic designers for discussing corporate identity change is Under Consideration Brand New. They have their eBay article up.... http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/ebay_settles_for_l… Of all the potential logos that could be done for eBay this is the absolute most boring and risk-averse logo that could have been both presented and selected.

"Unbranded" is not the correct term to describe stripping out ads and search suggestions. Visually it is still uncomfortable to use Bing; specifically for anyone that respects typography and design. http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/the_best_and_worst…

UnderConsideration's Quipsologies and For Print Only (FPO) are design metablogs that regularly feature great print work: http://www.underconsideraton.com/quipsologies http://www.underconsideration.com/fpo/ There's also idsgn: http://idsgn.org/

On a side note as a font-lovin' designer type: I personally love it when sites break out the webfonts to great effect. If a site is designed well then the small detail of the font AA is easily missed, ignored or forgiven as the site is a joy to use/view. Quipsologies is a case in point. http://www.underconsideration.com/quipsologies/ The slight clipping of their sub-heads under chrome is overlooked given beautiful layout and clear delivery of information.

I should have provided some context since this isn't exactly the usual HN subject matter. Earlier this week, Gap Clothing changed their logo from the old iconic blue box logo to the new one which is essentially another Helvetica wordmark and a box placed in the corner. Mike's post (the main link), which is employing quite a bit of insincerity, assumes you knew about this before hand. Brand New, a great brand identity blog, has more and a lively discussion about it - http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/dont_mind_the_gap_…

Coca-cola has changed its logo MANY times in the last 100 years: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/coca-cola_vs_pepsi… Remember, Coca-cola tried to rebrand the product as "Coke," then rebranded it as "Coca-Cola Classic" when that failed, and then rebranded it again as just "Coca-Cola" recently. That's three names for the product. Pepsi has only used two (Pepsi and Pepsi-Cola).

Ikea didn't anger fans of Futura. It angered fans of typography. Reasonable people could debate whether Futura looked dated and idiosyncratic. But almost nobody seems to have a defense for Verdana, which is a typeface that makes a number of concesssions for legibility at small sizes on a computer screen. Worth reading though is Brand New blog's "Verdanagate" post: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/verdanagate.php Brand New certainly seems to think this is overblown. Gruber at Daring Fireball suggests that this is an elaborate ruse to get Ikea lots of attention and publicity from designers.

All of these examples appear to have been swiped from the rather excellent http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/

Follow up on the new design with a bunch of pics: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/pepsi_revealed_sor…

Wow, thanks for that. I had no idea that e.g. Deezer got rid of their iconic logo https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_and_iden…

Thanks for sharing. Browsing the before&after tag was especially enjoying: https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/category/type/bef… I found a nice counter example to the trend presented in the article: https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_and_iden…

On that subject, https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/ tracks the desecration of all these once colorful, beautiful, expressive logos into this new bland style that's in vogue.

Here is an example that went with the trends and destroyed the iconic mark of the Library of Congress: https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_and_iden… Library Library of Congress. Sad. What they did with PBS logo is simlar to slight redesigns over the years - GE, Lufthansa, AMEX, VISA, MasterCard, etc.

The worst of all is American Airlines logo. The one designed by Vignelli was far superior in every aspect, yet we have the one today which looks awful: https://www.dezeen.com/2013/01/21/american-airlines-debuts-new-logo-an… Another example is Library of Congress logo designed by C&G, timeless until it lasted and Paula Sher(Pentagram) destroyed it. https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_and_iden…

I ask myself the same question, especially when it was announced on HN they just spent cash on a new branding logo https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_and_iden…

Brand New is a good resource: https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/

If any of you enjoy brand critics tearing apart corporate brand and identity redesigns, check out Brand New, the reader comments section is gold: https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/

Brand New is a good resource: https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/

I wonder if logo generators such as Hatchful could have designed a better logo for the Library of Congress than Pentagram did recently? https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_and_iden…

The Brand New review on this new branding system: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_global_identit…