branding
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Microsoft reveals new logo after 25 years, proves that it's (still) okay to be square
Remember that time Microsoft teased what most sane humans thought were new logos? That was right around two years ago, but the branding you see above is no mistake -- that's the new Microsoft logo, landing just months after Windows 8's new flag and merely weeks before the aforesaid operating system takes the planet by storm. Astoundingly, it has been a full quarter-century since Microsoft gave itself a new logo, and while we're sure pundits will jump all over it just because "dealing with change is hard," there's no doubt that the outfit's new face is bold in its simplicity. Care to learn more? There's a happy-go-lucky video waiting just after the break.
Google hires designers from Cuban Council to work on Google+
The folks at Mountain View have worked with the well regarded designers at Cuban Council before, but now Google is taking the partnership one step further by hiring several of the firm's employees. The search giant has acquired the contracts of a number of the company's designers explicitly to work on Google+. The details of the deal haven't been revealed, so we have no idea how many members of the staff will be setting sail for the shores of Goog or how much the pseudo acquisition set the company back. But, we do know that at least some of the firm that once designed the Facebook logo, Evernote's website, Rdio's mobile apps and helped define the beautiful WebOS UI will now be dedicated to keeping Google+ ahead of the aesthetic curve.
Netgear passes On through FCC with new router, name
What's in a name? Well, from the looks of this FCC filing, it could be something quite significant for everyone who knows the Netgear appellation. This N300R router has emerged from the commission's Washington enclave bearing On Networks branding, along with a spiffy new logo and less boxy look. We found that the new handle was trademarked by the company back in February, so maybe we'll see a corporate rebranding or this is the genesis of a new marque. As far as we're concerned, it can call itself whatever it pleases, as long as it still lets us roam free.
Intel launches youth-focused iQ webzine, tells its brand story through aggregation
It's like Highlights for kids, but with a decidedly techno-centric spin. The company known more for what it's put inside our gadgetry has just unveiled a new digital magazine, iQ, intended for the youthful, über-connected masses. Looking much like Flipboard in design and borrowing a live tile-ish approach, the internally-curated Intel webzine culls content from outside pubs and mixes it in with original and partner-contributed pieces to, as EIC Bryan Rhoads puts it, "tell... the bigger story of who we are as a brand." Indeed, it may do just that via the circuitous route of social recommendations, given that each news box grows in prominence along with its viral importance. There's no paid or free app to download, just a simple URL to link you to that dynamic "front page." So, if you feel your angst-ridden teenagers are in need of an industry-specific educational focus, this might be one site to add to their bookmarks.
NTT, Sharp, Gainax make a Japan-only Neon Genesis Evangelion phone, get your plane tickets now
If someone offered you the chance to buy a Neon Genesis Evangelion NERV-branded phone, you'd jump at it right? After all, there's nothing better than pretending you live under constant threat of alien attack, or that the teenage clone of your dead mother could turn into a giant and... moving on. Sharp, NTT DoCoMo and Gainax teamed up to produce this SH-O6D with a custom case, new hardware buttons and a (as yet unfinished) skinned version of Gingerbread that resembles the readouts you're likely to see in the depths of Tokyo-3. See America? This is how you appeal to fans, by making the tiniest amount of extra effort, rather than just slapping a logo on the bottom of whatever regular handset you're selling.
HTC One X could be coming to Sprint on June 10th, bearing LTE and 'Jet' codename
If unnamed "internal sources" at Sprint are to be believed, then HTC's new flagship phone is set to become one of the Now Network's first LTE handsets as soon as June 10th. The only sticking point, beyond us having no notion of whether these sources are credible, is that they didn't use the right name for the phone -- calling it the "HTC Jet" instead of the One X. Despite this switched moniker, S4GRU reports that all the leaked specs match up perfectly with the LTE variant of the One X, including a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm S4 processor (Tegra 3 being reserved for non-LTE version in other markets), 4.7-inch 1280 x 720 SLCD display, 1GB RAM, NFC, Gorilla Glass 2 and a polycarbonate unibody. As for the branding, 'Jet' would surely be a disposable codename, replacing the earlier Endeavor disguise, otherwise HTC's fresh start has already taken a hit.
Daily iPhone App: Monopoly Hotels checks in on EA's freemium expertise
Zynga's gotten a lot of flak for creating basically a clone of Tiny Tower, and you could make the argument EA has done the same thing with its new freemium title Monopoly Hotels. The game features a set of freemium goals as you set up a series of businesses in Monopoly's famous establishments, and just like Tiny Tower, you're recruiting guests, building shops, and so on. But while Monopoly Hotels is definitely influenced by the popular freemium trend, there's enough here that it's really a different game. There's not nearly enough love for the craft as Nimblebit puts into its titles, but there is some really good thinking about reward cycles (money occasionally falls from the sky in Monopoly Town, tasking the player to grab it by tapping away with glee), enough to suggest that if you're all done with Tiny Tower, this one's probably worth a look as well. Of course, EA is shameless with the product placement, so you can build rooms branded around Mr. Potatohead and My Little Pony, and even the rooms themselves (you start by building a "horse room," a gardening themed-room, and a cupcake store) are squarely targeted at the younger, more feminine audience. But the game is well-designed anyway. It's a nice chance to see what a big but open-minded studio like EA can do with the freemium genre (largely led, so far, by indie developers, or at least developers that used to be indie). If you're not a young girl or a freemium junkie, you might find this all a little boring, but hey, it's free. Why not?
Sony Ericsson hangs ten, launches Xperia Active Billabong Edition
Sony Ericsson is looking to start a bromance with the McTwist-loving, Double-Cork-landing, A-Frame-riding masses jonesing for a new Android device. The handset maker has announced a "global strategic alliance" with Billabong to launch the Xperia Active Billabong Edition smartphone in select markets. The handset will come preloaded with exclusive content, including Billabong screen savers, and bundle several Billabong-branded games and applications. As the two companies tell it, the Xperia ABE is the "ideal smartphone for extreme sports enthusiasts." Accordingly, Sony Ericsson hardware is about to start making appearances at various "major" Billabong events. Unfortunately, this next bit is really going to harsh your mello: the hardware is identical to that of the Xperia Active announced back in June, complete with a single-core 1GHz processor, Gingerbread, a 3-inch Reality display and a five-megapixel shooter. Even with its no-so-extreme spec sheet, we give SE a gnar-lay for effort.
Microsoft adding Nokia branding to Bing Maps
Noki-soft? Micro-ia? The madness continues! Nokia front-man Stephen Elop let it be known that his company's moniker will be making its way to Bing Maps in the near future, and he's not just talking about on the desktop. During a CES interview with Pocket-lint, Elop explained that any "property" utilizing Microsoft's Bing Maps service -- including mobile platforms -- will be co-branded with the Nokia logo. "We are clearly placing a bet on the Windows Phone platform; they [Microsoft] are placing a bet on our location-based platform," he said. The CEO cited BlackBerry as a non-Windows Phone device that will see the Nokia tattoo in its Maps app -- RIM recently announced its intention to integrate Bing Maps at the OS level. No word on when Microsoft branding will make its way onto Nokia software... oh, wait a minute...
Moving Brands reveals proposed HP brand redesign, HP remains noncommittal
HP has gone through some big changes in the past year, and it turns out it's also been considering a rather drastic change to its identity -- one that may or may not yet be adopted. That's been revealed by the team at Moving Brands, who began working with HP on a complete redesign of the company's brand in 2008, and have now shown off what they've come up in an exhaustive case study on their website. At the heart of it is a new logo, which traces its history to HP's original 1941 design, but takes on a decidedly more modern appearance; gone are the familiar circle and rounded corners, and in are some sharp lines and hard edges. According to Moving Brands, the goal was to make the brand "digitally native, context-aware and ever evolving," with the lines in the logo itself echoing the same 13 degree angle of the original while also "recalling the forward slash used in programming." Just what would this new HP look like? You can get a pretty good idea of that at the source link below -- we've also included a small taste after the break, including two of Moving Brands' videos.
Editorial: The problem with bad product names and what we can learn from it
Product names generally fall into one of four different categories: good, safe, meaningless and bad. There may be better categories to group them in, but we'll use these for the purpose of this editorial. In the first category I'd put something like Kindle, arguably one of the best new product names of the last ten years. iPhone and iPad, and their subsequent suffixed versions, are in the safe category. They're perfectly fine names for a cellphone and a tablet, but they're not as original or distinct as iMac or iPod were, which I'd consider good (iPod nano, shuffle and touch, on the other hand, are all safe names). In the meaningless category are things like the MSI GT683DXR or ASUS XU6280, one of which I just made up. Some meaningless names can also be good in their simplicity -- like the Nokia N9 or Nikon D3S -- but they are still basically nothing more than differentiators. This is an acceptable option. The names aren't just bad -- they're noise. In the bad category are the majority of smartphones released in the past few years. Rezound. Rhyme. Vivid. Epic. Sensation. Thrill. Skyrocket. Conquer. Triumph. Enlighten. Infuse. Prevail. Arrive. Can you name the company behind each phone? And those are just a few examples from this year. The names aren't just bad -- they're noise. Some names might fall into a fifth, slightly murkier okay category, but there are certainly more phones (and, increasingly, tablets) in the bad category than any other, and I'd argue that's a sign of a larger problem.
What's in a name? Nokia's new Lumia and Asha line explained
What rhymes with Nokia? Why, Lumia, of course. And there, fellow gadget freaks, lies the poetic branding key to Espoo's first, great Windows Phone. Alright, it's not that simple, but the company's marketing team did make a concerted effort to find a moniker ending with a vowel sound. Of course, before this catchy, albeit odd, name could be settled upon, a list of potential winners had to be cross-checked with over 300,000 tech trademarks. After broaching that hurdle, "only a handful" survived and were then parsed by linguistic experts to avoid any embarrassing malapropisms and pronunciation difficulties across 84 dialects. Despite finding "lumi" to be an out-of-date Spanish slang term, resulting surveys found most Spaniards associated the term with "'light' and 'style'," and thus it was saved. We know how this genesis story ends, so we'll spare you the obvious marketplace conclusion. And as for that new Asha range? Well, the thinking there is quite simple. It's the word for hope in Hindi, and as the line is intended for emerging markets, that just seemed apropos. Click through to the source for a more detailed walk through this mobile origin story.
Modern Warfare 3 edition Jeep seen at Detroit car show
Sidequesting caught the new edition of the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, based on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, at a car show in Detroit. While we'll probably see this thing again as the game gets closer to release (likely at next week's big Call of Duty XP convention), here's your first chance to see the ride, all pimped out in MW3 style.
Qualcomm overhauls complex naming scheme, introduces simpler Snapdragon levels
Say it with us now: "Huzzah!" For years, Qualcomm's Snapdragon brand has been held back from general understanding by one thing: befuddling model numbers. Hearing about an MSM 8255 doesn't really stick with the average consumer, and even for members of the press (and folks neck-deep in the supply channel), it wasn't exactly easy to keep track of. In a bid to put on a more consumer-facing suit, Qually has announced its intentions to move away from complex processor names and move towards a simpler "series" model. For now, you'll find S1, S2, S3 and S4, with "1' being a mass market device and "4" being the product you actually want. The slide just after the break explains where the cutoffs are for each level, but curiously enough, it sounds as if more of these will be added as technologies improve, speeds increase and capabilities soar. In other words, we hope your great-grandson is eager to get his hands on a Snapdragon S498. Wait, wasn't this suppose to reduce complexities?
Picasa, Blogger to get renamed: now with more Google?
Google's reportedly trying to put all of its product eggs into one self-branded basket. According to Mashable, two of its most popular services -- Picasa and Blogger -- may go under the branding knife and come out the other side looking like 'Google Photos' and 'Google Blogs.' With the exception of the latter's planned UI overhaul, both services should function exactly the same. The move -- alleged to take place within the next six weeks -- would unify the search king's user offerings ahead of the public launch of Google+. And if that social service's rumored July 31st launch date pans out, we could be seeing this overhaul very soon. But don't expect crown jewel YouTube to receive similar treatment, that site's brand equity already sent its ugly step-sister -- Google Video -- to the grave.
Samsung Galaxy S II US carrier names revealed: AT&T Attain, Verizon Function, and Sprint Within
Anticipation, thy name is Galaxy S II. Or is it Galaxy S 2 Attain? Perhaps it's Galaxy S 2 Function or Within, it all depends on what carrier you prefer, really. You see, the sleuths at Pocketnow have unearthed a silicone case for sale that lists those three names as the particular branding Samsung's new flagship smartphone will enjoy with AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, respectively. That, combined with earlier trademark filings by Sammy asking for Galaxy Attain, Function and Within registrations, would lead us to believe that we are indeed looking at the final product monikers. T-Mobile is notably missing from the list, but we suspect that may be because its variant of the Galaxy S II is materially different in design to the original GSII. The good news for everyone else is that the same silicone case will be interchangeable among AT&T, Verizon and Sprint devices, leaving very little room for those guys to screw things up.
Nokia slams door on Ovi label, rebranding everything to Nokia Services
Nokia's Ovi Store, Ovi Maps, and Ovi everything else will soon be getting a name change. The Finnish company has announced that it's "evolving" its software brand identity by renaming its service offerings to Nokia services, starting with new devices in July and August. This transition is expected to last into 2012 and was pretty much inevitable in the wake of Nokia's hookup with Microsoft earlier this year. Part of that agreement was for Nokia software, Maps in particular, to be made available in other Windows Phone devices and across Microsoft's range of services, so it makes sense for Nokia to literally put its name on its wares. Nothing structural will be changing about software roadmaps or plans up in Finland, this will be just a new nameplate atop the same strategy as outlined previously.
Caption Contest: Samsung hires David Beckham as a global brand ambassador
David Beckham is a man that needs no introduction. Indeed, Samsung hopes he'll be the one making the introductions, as it's just signed up the English footballer to act as its global brand ambassador. Mr. Becks will be responsible for disseminating the news that Samsung is one of the major sponsors of the London 2012 Olympics, and we can see he's already received the first tranche of his remuneration in the form of a Galaxy S II. Lucky him. Thomas: "I'm sorry, I got the Spanish version, this one says 'Sii' on it." Vlad: "At 8.49mm, this phone's almost as thin as my wife!" Tim: "I don't know who you are or what this is, but I'm sure Victoria will love it." Amar: "Finally, a Galaxy that won't bench me!" Darren: "Man, this thing crushes my Aura." Richard Lai: "As part of the deal, Samsung will also be announcing the Galaxy S Beckham. OK, it's just a golden dual-core." Myriam: "So you want me to drop-kick this in front of the cameras, right?" Zach Honig: "Maybe in this Galaxy I can win a World Cup."
Acer changes its logo, hopes to start afresh
Over in Acer HQ, it's out with the old and in with the new. Having bid ciao to former CEO Gianfranco Lanci, the Taiwanese company is now slapping a fresh coat of paint and a softer typeface upon its corporate identity. The new Acer green is lighter and brighter and the more rounded new shape looks a lot safer for kids to play around with, should the occasion ever arise. We doubt this will make a big difference in the company's push to be "more like Apple," but hey, at least we now have a visual marker to distinguish the products that came before this shift in strategy from those that come after.
Nokia continues reinvention, details new fonts and branding
Nokia's current typeface -- Nokia Sans -- feels like one of the great constants in the consumer electronics industry, a design that instantly screams "Nokia" the moment you see it (for better or worse). That kind of strong, tight brand recognition from something as basic and simple as a character on a screen really isn't something that you can buy -- it needs to be built and cultivated over many, many years -- so we're sure that Espoo's decision to chuck it and start fresh wasn't taken lightly. In fact, we're sure it wasn't taken lightly because the company has published an 800-plus word explanation and defense of its decision to kill off Nokia Sans and replace it with Nokia Pure, a font it describes as the embodiment of "beauty in supreme usability." Of course, it's no coincidence that the font change comes just as Nokia's trying to go back to the drawing board, both with its hiring of outsider Stephen Elop and its decision to phase out Symbian and add Windows Phone into the mix; sure enough, the company says that it plans to use Pure on its devices and that "it has been designed specially for mobile and digital environments." What do you think? [Thanks, Esko] %Poll-62187%
