First, but more of the same

"First National Real Estate is one of New Zealand's largest real estate groups. With offices New Zealand-wide our customers are in the unique position of working with a local real estate agent with local property knowledge, combined with the support and systems that a national network can provide."

Well in newsletter news...

"If you traveled around the country over the Festive Season you might have seen some First National offices and signs that are, well, different! That's because, across Australia and New Zealand, we are changing the way we look! That means over 550 offices, tens of thousands of signs and well, gazillions of business cards plus all other stationery."

So a new logo and a removal of the red from the colour palette and in comes a grey. The original logo has become distinctive and I always thought of it as a symbol of someone circling the right house that they wanted — job in the paper idea — and the new image keeps all the icons shape but removes the colour and added in is a rounded edge rectangle to reverse the graphic.

The logo is nice the same as many other the past few years (serif to sans). A move away from using Times (or something close) changed to Century Gothic . It would have been nice to see them try to keep the type in a serif typeface and resist the urge to do the usual. Also, the idea I mentioned earlier of circling is kind of lost with the colour change. The kerning seems all over the place especially in the 'national'. Although this just may be the image of have because the website logo looks a little less extreme.