Squares to Squiggles

Telecom unveiled their new logo on the Auckland waterfront last night, an article from the Dom post via stuff can be found here. The reason for the change, as Alan Gourdie, Telecom retail head said:

"Where previously it stood for telecommunications services, wires and networks, it now reflects New Zealanders doing what inspires them, and doing it on their terms."

The design was done by Designworks in Auckland.

Thank Phil for the link.

Re-Fresher

Meadow Fresh a Goodman Fielder company is producer of many things dairy. Products are generally all the types of milk and yogurt.

The new logo features most notably the removal of the sun and a change in the colours used. I was never fond of the old green and the deeper green gives it a fresher feel. I do like the new ligatures too, although I am a little undecided on whether the new 'M' or the previous one is more of a nicer form.

N.B. I had this sitting on draft for ages and forgot about it over the Holiday season & obviously the last month or two.

The Countdown to W?

Progressive enterprises is to phase out it's Woolworths and Foodtown Supermarkets in New Zealand over the next five years (as per this article on stuff) and put in place a 'new generation Countdown'. So an update of the Countdown brand was in order.

So another change to a rounded bold humanist sans serif, which reminds me of the Kodak rebrand. The move away from the complementary red and green that sat horribly together to a white background is much better on everyone's eyes. And although the Kodak change felt, to me, that it was unresolved the Countdown rebrand sits a little better, although the 'n's seem to descend below the baseline optically.

Now onto the Logo mark at first glance I immediately remembered the Woolworths rebrand in Australia and now all I see is an Apple and a 'W', but I guess at a stretch you could say it was a 'c' and 'd'. I can't help but feel let down that they didn't use a new logo.

Thanks Louise for the help.

Fresher and Fruitier

If you haven't seen the Fresh'n Fruity fridges that seem to be in every Supermarket and in some supermarkets, staff handing out leaflets advertising Fresh'n Fuity.

Fresh ‘n Fruity Marketing Manager, Caroline Giller, says
“We are very excited to bring our new Fresh ’n Fruity Superfruits™ range to market which delivers a new taste sensation in the yoghurt category.” “The new range is a perfect partner to join the classic flavours we already have on offer, but uses unique fruits known to be high in antioxidants and pack a real punch in flavour and taste. We hope the new range will not only reinforce our valued customers’ loyalty but also generate new consumers to try Fresh’n Fruity.”

The redesign was done by Dow Design for Fonterra. Fonterra’s brief was to create a distinctive and memorable design to differentiate the Fresh’n Fruity brand from competitors.

‘The packaging had to have the personality and attractiveness that is the long established Fresh’n Fruity world" says Dow designer Andrew Sparrow.

The Dieline has plenty of images of the packaging change (and basically all the text I have).

Sunny Circle removal

While watching Canterbury (who are now Ranfurly Shield holders, thank-you DC) play in the Air New Zealand Cup, I noticed on the back of the players jersey's a blue block featuring Scenic Hotels. I immediately thought Scenic Circle Hotels, so I suppose the name change isn't so much of a big thing.

The removal of logos with gradients is some thing that I generally would condone, but when your logo is most recognisable with a circle then maybe a nod to the old, even though the 'circle' part has been removed from the name, would be good. The new is 'nice' but quite forgettable, losing much of it's uniqueness in the mark. I also do not like the changing of cases within a single word, to add "friendliness".

Same Change Hooker

LJ Hooker, an Australian founded Real Estate franchise that has now expanded through Australasia and Southern Asia. The founder Leslie Joesph Tingyou, changed his name to Hooker believing thinking it would be better for business. The name Hooker comes from Leslie Joseph's favourite position in Rugby, well according to Wikipedia. The company moving into New Zealand somewhere between 1996-98.

On the old logo, I never liked the the diagonal axis' on the 'O's or the legs of the 'K' and 'R'. The name LJ Hooker is unique enough that if the logo had a dramatic change, so the move from upper case serif typeface to the sans-serif type doesn't change the brand, but falls into line with their advertising using children, teddybears and this family feel. The use of lower case Sans-serif type has been a long running trend with many company changes

Thanks Matt for the Tip

Re-equiped

I know little about Hirequip, I have never had to hire anything that they supply so I am no expert in what they do. So here's what their site says verbatim;

"Welcome to the site of New Zealand’s leading hire company, Hirequip. Our nationwide network of hire branches makes hiring convenient and with over 50 years experience in the hire industry you’re guaranteed to receive quality advice, every time."

I think that they have pushed this into the wrong direction, the previous logo had aged a little poorly, but it is a sturdy logo that I feel fits more with the brand than the new logo does. Maybe the removal of the 'swooshes' around the HQ and slightly less bold typeface would have sufficed. I do like the shortened HireQuip to 'HQ' part of the previous logo, it gives me the notion that somebody thought that this was the Headquarters for hiring stuff. Period. I like that stance and it seems to follow the websites statement above.

UPDATE: The re-design was handled by FireBrand.

Institute 2.0

The designers institute of New Zealand or dinz for short, is the something designers should be atleast aware of, and probably should sign up to (I will when I get my next cheque...). All the changes to do with dinz, so far (minor CSS issues aside), I've been quite impressed. Pro Design looks much nicer, the website has had a makeover, but more importantly there are some very nice articles on there too. I may sound like I'm impartial with Design Assembly featuring in Pro Design's current issue, but they have made some nice changes.

The change away from the extended type is welcome, while the old was not at 'bing' proportions it was still a little off, I would have liked to see the new logo pushed more, but when dealing with a bunch of different designers it probably better be on the safe side = Helvetica.

King uncrowned

Liquor King one of the many liquor outlets in New Zealand, being one of the more established outlets I would assume it would still hold a decent market share, with 42 outlets nationwide. Liquor sales have been a debated issue for a while in New Zealand, teenage drinking, drunk driving, drinking leading to other horrible things. Also things items like the 1999 deregulation of New Zealand Liquor industry allowing beer to be sold in supermarkets, and in 1989 wine was able to be sold in supermarkets). Convenience stores having the right to sell alcohol as well, with recent 150sq/m issue bringing this more to light.

What ever side you agree or disagree with is beside the point in terms of this blog but if you want some other reading here a few articles to start you off (NBR, Guide2)

I wondered what the reasons where for the change as I thought the previous logo was good, if they wanted a change and found that Lion Nathan decided on the change earlier this year also that it's online sales are poor (although they have yet to change the site significantly).

The most obvious change is the move from 'Liquor King' to 'LK'. Many logo design blogs have discussed the change from established name to a acronym or nice-name. Although I don't think they intend people to start referring to them as LK, I don't think the brand is recognisable as just LK, the combination of the colours helps to distinguish the brand.

Another change is the removal of the crown motif, replaced by bubbles forming a New Zealand map. The current trend of the addition of gradients, bevels and 3D effects was not missed too. I found the crown to be a solid mark conveyed what Liquor King meant 'bubbles and a crown'. The new logo which is of a badge which maybe... a jug being poured?

I think keeping the old motif and changing the typography would have been enough, redesigning the store too, to help with a brand new feeling. I think the site is lacking at the moment, in terms of interface design and probably should have been the first thing invested in, rather than a logo that will need to be updated in a few years time.
Side of store showing application of logo on Riccarton Road by Bush Inn.

Sorry for the poor new logo image was hard to track down.

Two new, Too different

Much has been written about the Telecom-Vodafone duopoly over the mobile phone networks in New Zealand. Soon the duopoly will become a oligopoly (well, already is), and hopefully force changes in pricing of calls and text messages between Mobile phones, which have been suggested by the Commerce comission which also has had much written about it (I would normally have links, but come on "Is your google broken?").

2° has aggressively advertised using the hilarious, but now over used, Rhys Darby as well as giving a sim card and $5 credit as part of it's chinwag promotion. In terms of log-o, I am not in favour of the making logos three dimesional, they seem like cheap tricks. Hopefully they will revert to a 2D logo instead. The thing that 2° has done well is come up looking like the underdog, the little guy, with Rhys Darby being the loved character of Murray from Flight of the Conchords, playing on the New Zealand pscyhe. I'm sure 2° have spent a lot on advertising and promotion to get the company off the ground and get a good foot hold in the mobile market. And so far it has been successful without a plan or phone ever being shown.

On the flip side of advertising budget, Black and White mobile launched earlier this year. The television ads that featured looked like clip art in a powerpoint presentation. The website is no better and follows a similar design. This company can really be considered the little guy, the design follows the company line and business name of being simple with no strings and caches.

The logo itself, is American Typewriter Bold tightly kerned white on black, I would say it doesn't suit a company that is trying to get new customers and goes against all the warm-lowercase-sansserif logo trend. Instead a bold strong logo more along the lines of a hardware product.

Overall, is exciting to see more companies coming in to the market, it can only help lower the cost of mobile phone usage in New Zealand. But in terms of design I am quite disappointed by the two logos here.

insert bad pun about explosion

I have recently been watching 'Rocked the Nation 2 - 100 Pop Culture Stories' and thought: Why haven't I thought of the C4TV logo change? Also seeing the people blog about MTV recent change (here and here) and the amount of 'quality' programming that feature on both lead to me post this. C4 overhauled all it's graphic from ads to pop graphics at the start of April this year.

The logo redesign was done by The Church, those great folks who bring us Semi Permanent (which is coming up, book your tickets now). The previous logo, which I have been recently informed was done in-house and you can see a nice line up of the logo changes since C4's beginning on Wikipedia.

I am rather indifferent on this redesign. I didn't mind the old logo, although I think the newer one is a better. The changes to the small bits that are inbetween programmes and advertising are much nicer than previous, nice and simple, although I would like my counters back.

More regular care

Nurse Maude as they put it on their website:
Nurse Maude provides community and acute nursing and homecare throughout Canterbury and Care Coordination in Christchurch and Wellington as well as inpatient care in the Nurse Maude Hospice and Hospital.

The new logo has been implemented and I am disappointed that they discarded the old 'nm' logo, even if the overlapping of letters is clichéd. It was a iconic symbol on the side of the small white hatchbacks that drove round to city.

A gradiated fade in a murky blue with the white characters, gives it a slightly eerie look. The light colour may create legibility issues, but so far I haven't seen problems with its application.

The new logo, at a larger size the gradient is more obvious.
But even at a small size on envelopes the gradient is noticable.

Modern Technology

Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, or CPIT for short is one of the many tertiary education providers in New Zealand. Late last year Strategy took over the CPIT contract and with it a completely new look for CPIT's advertising was made. Two main changes to the logo are changing from Garamond to a San serif typeface what looks like Akzidenz Grotesk bold and the movement and increase emphasis on the 'feathers'.

The change in Advertising is probably where the most significant change in branding can be seen, more text based advertisements using strong bright colours (as below) have been pasted up around the city. Gone are the old posters featuring an image with a half relevant pun on a white background, in comes saturated colour stick figures, pictograms and plenty of type.Colours in above image are similar to CPIT ads not exactly the same as through scanning, converting to web and changing from CMYK to RGB affects colours)

The logo itself is a step in the right direction although the typeface is a bit too bold but an update was needed. The same can be said for the advertising and other Ephemera. I am not sad to see the old ads disappear and I think the creators of them would be happy to forget them too.



Less Dick more X

I wasn't going to post this one and had it saved as a draft for a while because it has has already been covered on Brand New (but as a Australian brand and recently Westfield Riccarton opened a new Dick Smith upstairs which has the new logo) and it was also covered on Design Assembly.

The old New Zealand one differs from the old Australian one featured on Brand New (the Electronics is much more generously kerned and the head descends rather than Ascending on the Australian version. If you can't be bothered reading through all of Chris Thorpe's post then to summarise it was done by Hoyne Design.

and Statement from Dick Smith via Chris Thorpe guest blogging on Brand New:
The objective of the rebrand was to make the Dick Smith brand relevant in today’s market and support the business moving from electronics to technology. Research conducted over past 18 months confirmed the Dick Smith Brand was dated and considered old fashioned. The word electronics had us stuck in the 1970s. We’re in the technology and entertainment business and we realised we needed a contemporary brand to match that.

I liked the geeky illustrated face and it will be sad to see it disappear to be replaced with a more generic logo-type although the old one was dated it added to its charm and it felt right for the store. The name Techxperts is confusing and the staff at Dick Smith are often unhelpful and will avoid you.

Bringing the Mitre back

Ok this isn't a logo change or anything that is brand new. But for Mitre 10's 35 year anniversary in New Zealand they are using an old logo which incorporates the Mitre in Mitre 10. Also adding to the retro 70's kitsch feel they also have an illustration of a game show type host. I like the quirkyness of the campaign and have usually enjoyed the tv ads Mitre 10 has produced. I don't think too much can be said about the typography neither are that strong in that department. But the blue yellow and orange are a strong established brand in New Zealand and to people of my generation so seeing it in such a different way is a nice surprise.

Gothic Energy

A while ago Demon Energy was released and grabbed a niche market of the ever expanding energy drink market in New Zealand. Now many drinks have been released into a similar market that aims at the sub 30 male market. Offering more energy than your standard (more colourful) energy drinks, such as Red Bull, Lift plus and V, that makes you think of Youtube clip's like Powerthirst and College Humours' reply. Mother energy drink have recently been aggressively pushing their advertisement explaining the need for excessive amounts on energy.

Other products such as Relentless, Ink and even Illicit Cola share a similar branding strategy dark colours usually black and red, with Gothic black letter typography. Their advertising strategy seems similar to that of Beer advertising pushing an image rather than their product (homogenous product and point of difference being advertising image).

Coca-Cola have been putting in tens of million dollars behind Mother Energy it seems they may be here to stay, appealing to what I can sum up as this market. Here's to hoping it follow's in the path of Cherry Cola.

Citrus Tree Juice, Frucor repositioning of brands

Citrus Tree fruit juice is in many homes in New Zealand and is also served in many restaurants too, this may change as the branding now seems to have repositioned towards a similar level to Frucor's other brand Just Juice, although they all have been repositioned over the last few years, Fresh Up getting a bigger more annoying make over.

In terms of the logo, there hasn't been anything dramatic in the change and the lack of a good logo image of the old means it is harder to compare.

From a packaging stand point out with the dark greens and banners and in comes bright orange and the cheesiness of a glass of juice in place of the 'i' and an orange on the 'O'.

New Zealand On Air

New Zealand on Air is a government funding agency for television, radio and NZ Music. The logo is most prominently seen in New Zealand Music Video's and at the end of funded television programme's. The previous logo desperately needed updating and this change happened late last year. The new logo is nice but nothing really special, a two part swoosh that means little and a gradient of colour from warm to cool. The type, I suppose, looks like inflated balloons and play on the 'air' idea without going over board.

Bernard Duncan, Deputy Chief Executive of New Zealand on Air, explains:

There was no media release at logo change. There were a number of reasons for doing it, including a change in the proportions of screen size and high definition broadcasting. The design was done by a Wellington company called native. See their website at www.nativehome.com

Brand New Brand New Zealand

This blog is dedicated to blogging branding changes within New Zealand. Ofcourse the idea is borrowed form Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio of Underconsideration's Brandnew.