Print publications have been cutting back in various ways in recent years, including employing smaller staffs and printing on smaller paper sizes. Now the 119-year-old Billboard is unveiling a total redesign that involves its own chopping down.

In the redesign, which debuts Saturday, the brand’s iconic capital “B” loses a bit of ink and be lowercased. Business Insider points out it follows a recent design trend that's seen brands like Arby’s, Weight Watchers, Lifetime and the brand formerly known as as J.C. Penney’s, jcp. 

The longstanding colors inside Billboard’s lettering will disappear on the print publication to give it a more grownup feel, but remain mostly the same on the brand’s website (though the blue in the “a” is lighter and now the “b” will get a touch of green). Each letter will also be much thicker.Continue reading...

In the United States, 7-Elevens aren’t exactly known for their funky appearance. But in Sweden, convenience-store consumers will be experiencing a completely different aesthetic in 2013 as the brand undergoes a groovy redesign there.

Stockholm was the location of the chain’s first European shop in 1978. Now its Swedish locations are getting an overhaul that started rolling out in December, using the company’s green and orange color scheme as its foundation in a highly minimalist way.

Green-and-orange striping abound on the chain’s cups, napkins, and bags, while green also adorns store walls, making the environments appear warmer than their antiseptic American counterparts.Continue reading...

Food Network welcomed the New Year with a new look, heralding its two decades of making a 24/7 food TV programmer a powerhouse brand (it turns 20 on Nov. 23rd). An updated logo and graphics package hit the air January 6th as part of a multiplatform roll-out, the first identity update since 1997. 

Working with Hollywood-based agency Troika, the refresh focuses on ‘Characters and Stories’ in promos that take the Scripps-owned cable network's programming beyond the food and around the table, as seen in on-air promos such as the one, above, for "Chef Wanted With Anne Burrell" or Rachael Ray and Guy Fieri's new reality series.

“Food Network has grown and we wanted to freshen-up our look and energy to better reflect our evolution into a broader, multi-platform entertainment brand,” said Susie Fogelson, SVP, Marketing and Brand Strategy, Food Network and Cooking Channel in a press release by parent Scripps Networks Interactive.

The refresh includes a “Smart” bug system to promote shows, activate social media conversations, navigate audiences across platforms, and drive business to Food Network’s other ventures, such as Food Network Magazine.Continue reading...

Bankrupt American Airlines found a little extra cash to invest in a lot of paint.

The troubled airline — which is rumored to be considering a merger with US Airways and has irked its union in recent months with threatened job cuts — introduced a new look Thursday, its first major design change in 40 years.

In the airline's new identity, the eagle long a fixture in the airline’s logo has been marginalized. Only a suggestion of it remains in the “neck and head embedded in the design element in front of the American’s lettering at the airplane’s front," The Dallas Morning News noted. Continue reading...

Despite being passed around to a few different owners over its lifespan, 64-year-old Saab has been around long enough to build up a strong brand. It went bankrupt back in 2010, but now is expected to be turning out a new breed of cars in the next few years thanks to the new ownership of Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS), a partnership between China's National Modern Energy Holdings and Japan's Sun Investment.

NEVS will be turning Saab into an electric car, which likely won’t be on the market for a few years. But when it does, something will be gone from Saab that's survived all the other changes: the griffin on its logo.

The mythical creature that has the body and tail of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle will still be found on Saab trucks and planes, which are not owned by NEVS and will remain with their current manufacturers. For now, a griffin-less logo will represent the company.Continue reading...

Lipton is going back to basics, in a way, to add new aroma to its U.S. tea business with the first marketing campaign behind its staple black-tea products in America in nearly a quarter-century.

Lipton—the biggest name in tea globally, at over 100 countries and 100 years old—also has held on to its lead in the US CPG dry-tea market for decades, despite essentially having ignored its basic black teas in a marketing sense.

Now, the Unilever-owned brand has launched a campaign aimed at getting US tea consumers to "Drink Positive" (a play on "Think Positive") and to appreciate the uplift that tea can give them. It's also a move to increase the number of tea-drinkers by skewing younger.

The integrated campaign by DDB New York includes TV, digital (liptontea.com, its US Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter) and a visual refresh by making the iconic Lipton packaging a more vibrant shade of yellow.Continue reading...

When VH1 got started way back in 1985, the cable TV network followed right in the footsteps of its sibling MTV, although focused its efforts at an older demo. While MTV (short for Music Television) scored big with tunes for adolescents and young adults (Men at Work, anyone?), VH1 (an acronym for Video Hits One) was going for the slightly older crowd, playing music videos featuring the likes of Elton John, Donna Summer, and Rod Stewart.

The thirst for an endless stream of music videos on both Viacom-owned channels came to a halt only a few years into their collective existence and shows with varying levels of quality were cranked out. VH1 scored hits with the annotated Pop-Up Video series, the gossipy tell-all bio series Behind the Music, and the artist-centric VH1 Storytellers. The music in both brands has consistently been drowned out since then with a slew of other programming, inspiring the perennial plea by boomers to bring back the music to MTV and VH1 (season three of IFC's Portlandia kicked off with a plotline to take back MTV from tween with its original VJs and news anchor, Kurt Loder.)

VH1, for one, has decided to indicate that shift with a change in its logo (or as the company likes to call it, "tagmark"). 

As announced at the TCA TV Critics Association press tour, VH1 is kicking off the new year by adding a plus sign to the end of its logo, to reflect the changes in the digital world — meshing together the network’s music, pop culture and nostalgia content together — in tandem with adopting a black-and-white look and feel to its visual identity and on-air promos. It's promoting the new look with, naturally, a #plussed hashtag on Twitter.Continue reading...

The Miami Dolphins finished out the NFL season with a disappointing 7-9 record, but that hasn’t stopped fans of the team from getting very excited about one aspect of the team: its logo.

The rumor mill is buzzing that the Dolphins are busy redesigning the logo that has been around in one form or another since the team joined the NFL in 1966. Since then, the team has donned helmets that feature a dolphin wearing a helmet with an M on the side jumping in front of a fiery sun. 

It isn’t clear what is coming next but Dolphins CEO Mike Dee is happy to have his team getting some attention. On Dec. 24, he tweeted, “I hear all the logo buzz out there...I'll provide an update soon! Happy holidays to all. Be safe!” But Dee’s definition of “soon” probably doesn’t equate to a lot of the team’s fans. Two days later, he tweeted, “Lots of buzz re logos. Love the passion! We continue to explore a # of design alternatives...final decision by Draft. Happy holidays!” NFL execs won’t be walking the stage at Radio City Music Hall and naming their draft choices till April 25. 

So hurry up and wait, Dolphin fans. Until then, snap up whatever old Dolphin merchandise you can and speculate all you want.Continue reading...