You’ll notice I’m doing more roundups these past few days. It’s no surprise because 2009 is almost over and it’s usually this time of the year that we gather and review these things. In the design community, corporate and brand identity plays a major inspirational role. So today, I have gathered at least 45 of the top and famous logo design makeover or re-branding for 2009.
To re-brand or not
Re-branding or logo re-design is no easy task. The overall impact of even the smallest change in design should be considered. Famous companies and brands have already established their identity, and customers will have certain expectations of any products or materials coming from them. Even the smallest businesses that have been building their brand could take a step backwards if re-branding or redesign are not handled properly. Any business that decides to re-brand will have to take the risk and should carefully consider the reasons behind, and the pros and cons cautiously weighed. Re-branding usually requires an increase in marketing spend including advertising, business promotional items, and product packaging to get the new brand out there.
These top 45 logo design makeover/re-branding of 2009 doesn’t necessarily mean they have successfully done a good re-design job and certainly there will be good and bad comments here and there. But that’s exactly what I want to hear. Be the judge and be heard what you exactly think about their new branding.
AOL’s new brand identity
This logo re-branding roundup was also kindled by the latest and could probably be the biggest re-branding in the online community. The new and next generation AOL, now “Aol.” with a period. The period was added to establish AOL’s content structure as in Aol.Personals or Aol.Classifieds, etc. The new logo is in sans serif typography which can be placed on top of any bunch of wild card images, objects, and almost anything that stand behind to prominently reveal the new “Aol.” logo. The new logo will be officially unveiled on December 10, coinciding with AOL’s independence from Time Warner. You can read more about AOL’s press release here.
2009 Top 45 + 1 Logo Re-branding
So here goes our top 45 plus 1, starting off with the latest AOL (Aol.) logo.
1. France tourism logo (January 2009)
2. Sprite (January 2009)
3. Air France (February 2009)
4. Citroën (February 2009)
5. Kraft Foods (February/July 2009)
6. Jack in the Box (February 2009)
7. Cheer Detergent (March 2009)
8. Snapple (March 2009)
9. Hudson’s Bay Co. (March 2009)
10. Valio Ltd (March 2009)
11. Discovery Kids (April 2009)
12. International Film Festival Rotterdam (April 2009)
13. Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD) (April 2009)
14. NFL’s Detroit Lions (April 2009)
15. Packard Bell (April 2009)
16. Sunny Delight Fruit Juice (May 2009)
17. Fort Worth Museum of Science and History (May 2009)
18. HTV (Hispanic Television) Music Channel (May 2009)
19. Spanair (May 2009)
20. Kraft Miracle Whip (May 2009)
21. Quicktime (June 2009)
22. Firefox 3.5 (June 2009)
23. Vistaprint (July 2009)
24. Union Bank of California (July 2009)
25. Design Management Institute (July 2009)
26. City of Melbourne, Australia (July 2009)
27. Network Solutions (July 2009)
28. VR Group (August 2009)
29. Meredith Corporation (August 2009)
30. Audi (August 2009)
31. Good Humor Ice Cream (August 2009)
32. Opera Web browser (September 2009)
33. Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) (September 2009)
34. Sony PlayStation 3 (September 2009)
35. Hilton Worldwide (September 2009)
36. Nickelodeon (September 2009)
37. Hertz (October 2009)
38. Meiji Holdings Co., Ltd. (October 2009)
39. Frigidaire (October 2009)
40. Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) (October 2009)
41. F-Secure (October 2009)
42. Pfizer (November 2009)
43. MSN (November 2009)
44. The New York Public Library (November 2009)
45. Bavaria (November 2009)
Kennedy on November 25, 2009
Great new brands. Quite inspiring. About the rebranded Mozilla Logo. Oops hadn’t considered the fox but a closer look at it leaves one amazed. Keep the posts coming.
Regards
Ken
brum on November 25, 2009
Great logo designs.. thx.
John Paul Aguiar on November 25, 2009
Nice list,, AOL should of left things alone..lol So bad.
Top 45 Logo Re-branding of 2009: Plus Preview on the New AOL Brand : PinoyBlogoSphere.com (PBS) on November 26, 2009
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by film__festivals: Top 45 Logo Re-branding of 2009: Plus the Latest on the New AOL …: 12. International Film Festival Rotterdam (April 20 http://url4.eu/pAEa...
Graphire on November 26, 2009
Thanks for the comments guys. The firefox re-design is the subtlest and of course the safest re-branding. For the AOL, I don’t know… I couldn’t think of anything concrete to say about it. I think the re-brand made it more complicated than ever and I’m kind of having mixed feelings about it.
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Jon Tsourakis on December 5, 2009
Great post. I find it amazing how many brands decide to rebrand, or rather, update their look. It’s interesting that Hertz went with a modern look and HBC a bit more classic.
Werbeagentur Siegen on December 7, 2009
Really nice selection. I’m currently working on a project. You really helped me out here. nice examples! thx
Famous Redesigned Logos of 2009 – A huge roundup!! | Logo Design Blog on December 7, 2009
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Murlu on December 9, 2009
The Nick logo really upsets me. I loved the splat logo
Oh well, times have changed and we all grow up.
K on December 10, 2009
pretty much all the re-branded logos are weaker than the original. What happened to design? It used to be about pushing the envelope, now its all safe and boring… and not that pleasant to look at.
The Baldchemist on December 10, 2009
Thanks for the article. Interesting how many have “rebranded” and we haven’t really noticed!
I agree a little with “K” there is a lot of safety. Safe is deemed as good enough but good enough ain’t good enough ’cause its dull boring and expected.
Let’s see what 2010 brings. Take good care and get as much joy as you can every day.
The Baldchemist on December 10, 2009
Just as a little post script; I see Firefox have decided to melt the North pole!
Graphire on December 10, 2009
Very interesting observation Baldchemist. And yes, there haven’t been dramatic changes this year except for AOL and a few ones. We’ll see next year. O yeah, I’ll surely miss that old Nick splat. I practically grew up with it.
Thanks everyone for dropping by. Enjoy!
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[...] http://www.designfreebies.org/free-vectors/logos-free-vectors/top-45-logo-re-branding-of-2009-plus-t... [...]
Thibault on December 16, 2009
So great examples. Thanks for it.
Rodney on December 17, 2009
The Lions changed their logo, but it didn’t change their football team. They still stink.
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Peter on January 8, 2010
ืำnew change for new look. I like Lion Logo
Kevin on January 8, 2010
Some great redesigns, but I think the HBC is worse after the redesign
Mohammad Elsheimy on January 8, 2010
amazing!!!
Bob on January 8, 2010
Great article. 3d and shine appears to be in. Agree about the AOL logo: WTF. Kudos to the folks who did the Fort Worth Museum logo.
Tanya Gagnon on January 11, 2010
Great list you compiled here. I would love to here the reasoning behind some of the changes. Some only slightly changed like Firefox but others made a radical change like Good Humor ( for the better by the way).
Thanks
cardeo on January 15, 2010
HBC is my favorite
Internet Marketing Vancouver on January 16, 2010
Petty cool! I think Firefox playing a game “find the difference”
Scott Mosher on January 21, 2010
A few are suitable or noticeable improvements. The majority, to me, aren’t much better, and in more than a number of cases, extraneous at best, and ill-conceived and poorly executed at worst. I particularly like the Detroit Lions new logo, The Bavaria rebrand, the DMI logo and Good Humor. Meredith, Audi and Network Solutions are also nice reconstructions. The rest… meh!
X on January 23, 2010
Some of these designs are just aweful. When you look at these, ignore the before and after and pick which is better with your eye. The first three are terrible. The AOL brand looks like a college art project, the France tourism brand has no visual integrity and the Sprite logo looks as though it was designed the night before presentation.
Top 3:
- Jack in the box (More up to date, the perspective is good, but would this translate easily into all media? (signage, paper, and unconventional media?)
- HBC (highlighting the 400 year history of this corp is always positive. It fits with the consumer target audience and insinuates time-tested confidence in the brand.)
- Airfrance (Font is crisper, graphics no longer look as if they’re just dangling on the logo)
Bottom 7:
- MSN (Old Butterfly with new Text would have been better. The new butterfly looks childish)
- Frigidaire (Previous logo was fantastic and could have been updated with a more linear font, roundel. New logo looks like it was designed by a mom and pop real estate firm)
- Opera (7 clicks in photoshop, whoever paid for this needs a new graphic department)
- Silicone Graphics (same as Opera)
- Pfzeiser (same as Opera)
- Quicktime (Considering the original was launched with the imac candy colour scheme, it wasn’t that original to begin with. The new logo looks even more out of date than the previous.)
I picked seven because all of these are ghastly. They either replace an interesting and unique logo already being used, or they simply change the colour, light value of the pre-existing logo. In all of these cases, the new logo does no justice to the corporate image, product or brand expectation.
I don’t want to be insulting, and I realize that most of these designs are approved by generally unqualified people, but the majority of these designs are not impressive.
Sarah Palin Rocks on January 25, 2010
Hello. This is kind of an “unconventional” question , but have other visitors asked you how get the menu bar to look like you’ve got it? I also have a blog and am really looking to alter around the theme, however am scared to death to mess with it for fear of the search engines punishing me. I am very new to all of this …so i am just not positive exactly how to try to to it all yet. I’ll just keep working on it one day at a time Thanks for any help you can offer here.Check out my website if you get a chance, just click on name. (I don’t want to leave a link, it looks too spammy)
Graphire on January 26, 2010
Hi Sarah Palin Rocks. I haven’t done much with my menu bar because it’s a canned wordpress theme that already has that drop down menu bar on top. You can however do that using CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) which you google around for sample codes, mod and tweak the codes and try it on your theme.
You can also save yourself some time by using built in scripts and plugins by checking out wordpress plugins directory.
Eric on February 9, 2010
MSN’s logo is kind of the same but a little diffrent. At least it still haves the “butterfly”.
maxtech on February 27, 2010
I think it WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW
maxtech on February 27, 2010
can you help my to creat my logo
I’m from jordan i like your design
show my some of sample to my shop name is maxtech.
its computer & mobile services
thank you
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