• U.S. financial brands with hundreds of years of heritage are rebranding to keep pace with changing financial markets. Pentagram’s Michael Bierut explains how his team rebranded The Hartford, preserving brand equity while reflecting an evolving company.
• What is with the trend of so many companies “bolding” their identities? Reasons are myriad, as quoted in Fast Company article: “Companies have long expressed the desire to get more bang for their branding buck; ‘Make the logo bigger’ is a common refrain among design clients (and one that designers tend to dread hearing). It would seem that making the logo bolder is the next best thing, allowing for more logo per square inch, a denser deployment of general logo essence, and a symbol that, like Amazon’s, is more emphatic overall.”
• Tattoos in the news: SKF, a Swedish company specializing in bearings, seals, lubrication systems, and related services since 1907—has updated its logo and has offered to help people who have a tattoo of the company logo to update their tatts. Alas, SKF has limited the offer to the first 100 requests, so act quickly.
Read more at evolution.skf.com
In other body art news, Mountain Dew is touting its new logo with a social media sweepstakes that offers fans, hundreds of whom have the brand’s old logo tattooed on their bodies, the chance to win an all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas for fresh ink.