Google Doodle tributes-Mies van der Rohe’s 126th Birthday. Arguably the most influential designer in my early design career. Here’s to a genius, a Chicagoan, an educator, an architect and father of modern design.

“The cola, which is slated to hit store shelves nationally by the end of March, is Pepsi’s biggest product launch in years. The drink comes as people increasingly move away from sugary drinks to water and other lower-calorie beverages because of health concerns. It’s also an attempt by Pepsi to revive the cola wars against Coke and others.”

The most beautiful of these is Ciccarese Design. The beautiful curves mimicks the Apple Magic mouse design but translates it into a beautiful phone design.

Landor debuted their Super Bowl Logo system.  Landor is also recently responsible for the beautiful identity for Melbourne and the logo for the 9/11 Memorial. Gone are the day when each Super Bowl logo had its own separate style and identity. Now every Super Bowl will look uniform with a similar style and feel. The Vince Lombardi Trophy will bless each Super Bowl from here on out but the date and stadiums for each Super Bowl will change to reflect the host city.

“The NFL realized that there’s a gathering excitement, approaching the Super Bowl,” says Nicolas Aparicio, Landor’s Executive Creative Director. “The audience grows from 4.6 million in the pre-season to 16 million by the playoffs. A logo system needs to express that, and help build on it.”

Via: Fast Company  

DC Entertainment as they are now called, revealed its new Brand and logo. It’s a D peeling away revealing a stylized C underneath. The concept is solid. It’s a nod to the comic book page turning and the secret identity revealed underneath. Just like the excitement of buying a new comic book and turning the page to reveal the story. The C can be stylized in any way to match any superheros, allowing it to be interactive and flexible. Perfect for film and animated logo needs.

I’m going to have to let this one grow on me. Gone are the all -American themes that the former logo possessed. The blue swoosh and star was perfect, going in line with the superhero look and feel. It had the handcrafted look. It made the skin tight colorful spandex wearing superheros come together and made them look like they belong under something. Now, this ultra slick and clean corporatey looking brand makes me think of modern action movies driven by special effects and explosions. The retro feel is forever ingrained in my childhood memories which made DC comics so cool. To take that all away is a poor decision.

I can see why DC wanted to take this route. In a modern and fast changing world filled with technology and gagets, little is left for our imagination to take hold and run with. Comic book movies have been rewritten to stay relavent and especially the costumes have been changed up to appeal to the new generation of kids and movie goers. And recently a controversial move by DC to reset all their superhero comics to issue #1 was done to rewrite the origins of the superheros into a more modern spin. Let’s hope DC has some room in their branding to make a nod to their roots and save history. DC seems to be going all in on the digital transformation and not embracing their rich past.

“The new branding effort–spearheaded by Rood and Desai, in partnership with global branding consultants Landor Associates, and nearly a year in the making–continues the DC Entertainment revamp that began two years ago with the appointment of president Diane Nelson to put together the company, and continued with the hiring of co-publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee, and chief creative officer Geoff Johns, Rood and Desai, as well as the launch of last September’s successful The New 52 campaign that revised DC’s 52 comic book titles with new number one stories, redesigned costumes, and same-day digital publishing.”

I can imagine a big backlash coming from hardcore comic fans. This was a bold transformation DC.

VIA: FASTCO CREATE