Russian Science Centers' Visual Identity

There's a city called Puschino that is just south of Moscow and full of research and technology centers. These centers were build during the Soviet Era and are now undergoing a massive restoration. One nice change I've noticed is their visual identity. These proposed designs are quite different and I love how "old-school" they look. Check them out, I think these are great:

Starbucks gets a new logo

It is 2011 after all, and Starbucks is first to jump the "new brands of 2011" boat! Starbucks had some financial problems in 2008 and 2009 but with the founder, Howard Schultz, back on board as CEO, Starbucks might just start something new.
Starbucks Coffee company was always about that "third place," for any average consumer. First place is home, and second—work. For many years Starbucks has been trying to get people in and out in the mornings, and make them come back and stay in the evenings. There was even a heavy investment in music, movies and book products, but the economic hill was too hard to climb with only coffee as the main source of income.
So for their 40th year anniversary the logo shed some type, complexity and "logoness." Starbucks went simple, clean and minimal. Something that is not really part of their overall brand. It is a wise move from a stand point of financial future of the company. It now allows Starbucks to drop "coffee" and broaden their creative field.
I think Starbucks have a great community of people, very creative people, people who have strong opinion of American culture of coffee lovers. Starbucks is now part of that pop culture and has to adapt and learn. For its future, Starbucks will continue to focus on coffee, but expanding their digital media, partnerships with few cool companies, and expansion overseas is something I definitely see coming.

Style Over Reason

When designing a new logo for a brand, throughout the process, it is important to keep in mind that there has to be a reason for shapes, elements, colors and the overall mood. If you are a designer you should already know this by heart. But adding random swooshes to random typefaces that you though looked good on your Dell monitor is a wrong way to go and will not bring you success. Of course you can never please a client just with your own ideas, it has to be a collaboration and a compromise of thoughts.

Looking at the logo, I always think of what it speaks to me. In my experience:

• logo has to be simple enough that the viewer can draw it by hand just from a short glimpse at it.
• logo has to speak a simple and clear message
• logo has to have a reason or idea behind it

You’ll be surprised how many huge corporations with huge marketing budgets don’t research or have a proper logo. A great example would be Microsoft’s latest failed attempt: Bing. Name itself has a great sound to it and would worked great with a simple shape. But, it looks like Microsoft was not thinking of the image, users, audience or the philosophy behind the brand. It was strictly profit. Microsoft had to fight Google. And for Microsoft, to compete is to imitate. Just as Google’s bland logo, Bing had to reflect that. Just like Google’s blend User Interface, Bing had to go the same way. Microsoft claimed that they spend $80Million on Bing’s marketing campaign. Really?

To end the post on a positive note I’ve found some amazing examples of swiss style logos by helvetic brands. There ARE great identity designers after all, and you don’t have to spend millions to find one. Just Google them.