Hasta La Ideas

Put your logo love and your hue I.Q. to the test with Brandseen, a new brand identification game created by students Kevin Xu, Cathy Lee, and Ari Weinstein (pictured) at last month’s Greylock Hackfest in San Francisco. It sounds simple enough: Select the color you associate with each iconic logo and then click “Compare” to see how close, on a scale of 1-100, the shade you chose is to the actual one. At the end, you’ll learn how your ability to pinpoint Coca-Cola red—and the signature hues of eight other megabrands—stacks up with that of others (we hear the score to beat is an impressive 96% average accuracy). Be sure to bookmark Brandseen for future visits, as the developers plan to add multicolor logo challenges in the months to come.

Like this post? Then you’ll love LiquidTreat, a weekly newsletter designed to quench your creative thirst. Sip generously from past issues and subscribe (for free) here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

With its Nick at Nite orgins, TV Land has long been associated with classic sitcoms such as Bewitched, Mister Ed, and the infectious, toe-tapping opening credits of My Three Sons. The network’s stylized logo (at left), evoking the technicolor geo-whimsy of the zippy 1950s, was a perfect fit for that programming, but when the TV Land line-up evolved to include more modern syndicated shows (Everybody Loves Raymond, Boston Legal) and orginal programming devoid of nuclear families and happy homemaker-witches in prim dresses (Hot in Cleveland, The Exes), its branding remained tied to the atomic age. Enter Trollbäck + Company, which in its latest branding project for the network has undertaken the first logo reinvention in the 16-year history of TV Land.

“Given our familiarity with the brand, we knew that the logo was due for an overhaul to shake off some old perceptions,” says executive creative director Jacob Trollbäck, whose New York-based firm has tweaked the network’s branding in three previous projects. The new look is rolling out this month, with a modern edge, bold colors, and a fresh tagline (“Laugh More”). “The new horizontal logo locks up with type neatly,” notes T+Co creative director Anna Minkkinen, “allowing us to constantly reinforce the brand connection between the network and the shows.” Check out a montage that features the new branding here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

(Photo: Sasha Arutyunova)

“Brands are like people,” Reed Krakoff has said. “They are all different and you get to know them in different ways.” The versatile designer’s observation on the diversity of brands, quoted back to him by Pamela Golbin, curator of fashion at textiles at Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris, was a fitting way to begin the first in a trio of “Fashion Talks” presented by the French Institute Alliance Francaise (the chic conversations continue tonight, when FIAF welcomes Stefano Pilati, who earlier this month stepped down from the creative helm of Yves Saint Laurent). In two short years (and five runway collections), Krakoff has created a luxury brand—an American luxury brand, no less—from scratch, which in an industry that trades on centuries-old saddlery skills and wildly embellished “heritage” narratives is no simple feat, especially considering that he’s developed his eponymous label while also maintaining posts as president of executive creative director of Coach.

“When I came to Coach [in 1996], I had never done accessories. I was a menswear designer, and what I loved more than anything was starting something that was an amazing challenge, something where I knew I could learn and be on path to discovering what I could do—or not do,” he told Golbin at last week’s sold-out event at Florence Gould Hall. “I really love the idea of learning and challenges, and after fifteen years, I felt that I wanted to do more that was in keeping with my own true aesthetic.” Influenced by everything from ultimate fighting champs and vintage football jerseys to the artful aviary of John James Audubon and design masterpieces from his own astounding collection, that aesthetic is refined but flexible, as likely to embrace a sleek clutch (in matte python) as a bold trench stamped with a painterly monochrome print that only the most eagle-eyed shopper would recognize as an abstracted version of the brand’s geometric logo. “It’s a direct reflection of the things that I love,” said Krakoff. “The aesthetic is a combination of disparate ideas—things that are quite sexy and sensual and romantic, things that are quite minimal and architectural.”
continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Oreo, Jell-O, Maxwell House, Tang. It’s hard to find a grocery store aisle that doesn’t contain an iconic brand owned by Kraft Foods. Last summer, the Northfield, Illinois-based company, having at least partially digested its 2010 acquisition of Cadbury for $19 billion (that’s a lot of Mini Eggs), announced plans to split into two public companies: a “high-growth global snacks business” and a “high-margin North American grocery business.” The latter, which will include most of the cheesy stuff (Philadelphia cream cheese, the blue-box macaroni, those ubiquitous Singles), will get to keep the Kraft brand, leaving the larger snacks juggernaut in need of an appetizing new name. Kraft got down to business, soliciting some 1,700 suggestions from employees, and this week, the new corporate name was announced. Reader, it is Mondelēz International, Inc.

Say what? “‘Mondelēz’ (pronounced mohn-dah-LEEZ’) is a newly coined word that evokes the idea of ‘delicious world,’” noted the press release, which appears not to have been an early April Fool’s Day joke. “‘Monde’ derives from the Latin word for ‘world,’ and ‘delez’ is a fanciful expression of ‘delicious.’ In addition, ‘International’ captures the global nature of the business.” According to Kraft, the new name represents the Frankenstinian fusing of separate suggestions from two employees, one in Europe and another in North America. “I’m thrilled with the name Mondelēz International,” said Mary Beth West, the company’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer. “It’s interesting, unique, and captures a big idea—just the way the snacks we make can take small moments in our lives and turn them into something bigger, brighter, and more joyful.” As we come to terms with a future in which we’ll all be buying our Toberlones and Trident from a company whose name suggests a harebrained scheme of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, we imagined the munchies-fueled meeting that sealed the deal with these Top Ten Things Overheard at Kraft’s Branding Task Force Meeting:

10. What was the name of Speedy Gonzales‘s cousin?
9. Please pass the Oreos.
8. Let’s keep it simple. I vote for “Snacks Alive.”
7. What about Vandelay Industries?
6. I actually really liked New Coke. Thought it was totally delez.
5. OK, then just something that sort of rhymes with Vandelay…
4. No offense, but I’ve got a basketball game to watch. Let’s just combine all of these suggestions together and take the average.
3. I thought you said “fleur de lis.” Makes me think of Three Musketeers. [audible gasps] You working for Mars now, Jim?
2. That little thing over the second “e”—does that read too Häagen-Dazs?
1. ‘Delicious world,’ like in Esperanto? For me, it conjures castanets. Is this an emerging markets play?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Perhaps it’s the proliferation of crystal-clear HD televisions, the ascendance of 2012 Colors of the Year Tangerine Tango (Pantone’s pick) and Terracotta Rose (the ruddier hue favored by AkzoNobel), or simply a sign of the coming apocalypse, but companies of all kinds are suddenly enamored with the same vibrant pitchman: Roy G. Biv. Fresh from the “full spectrum”-themed TED Conference, we can’t help but notice that it’s color, color, everywhere on TV commercials, whether they’re touting pricey accessories, cheap n’ cheerful throw pillows, or the newest services of a big-box retailer. In these three rainbow-rific spots, color gets downright aggressive: running amok as a boldly costumed Parkour troupe for Target (“Color Changes Everything”), as “Sans Cans” paint flowing freely in the streets for Lowe’s, and slapping unassuming headphone-wearers upside the head for Beats by Dr. Dre. The take-home message: resistance is futile, color is coming for you, probably in the form of a limber European gentleman dressed in head-to-toe cyan.
continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.