A change for change’s sake? Or a new direction for Burberry?
Unsurprisingly completed in only four weeks, perhaps the biggest news on design this week is Burberry’s starkly different, yet equally underwhelming new logo and brand direction by Burberry’s Chief Creative Officer, Ricardo Tisci, in collaboration with famed designer, Peter Saville.
“The new logotype is a complete step-change, an identity that taps into the heritage of the company in a way that suggests the twenty-first-century cultural coordinates of what Burberry could be,” Saville exclusively told Dezeen.
Overall, the design community seems to be somewhat disappointed. While the wordmark itself is not particularly memorable or unique – mostly just starkly different than the Serif wordmark from before –, the team also developed a new colorful pattern that has a more quirky vibe that is classy, yet modern.
The polls of the design-driven ‘Brand New’ indicated that the overwhelming majority of the voters (65.5% to be exact) think that, in their opinion, the new logo is “Bad.”
The new pattern, on the other hand, was more mixed with the 47% majority of voters saying it’s “Fine.”
Armin Vit from UnderConsideration expresses how a lot of us feel in the design community:
“Overall, the logo is as expected as it gets nowadays while the pattern has a decent chance at becoming a thing.”
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A Plastic-Free Life… but is it doable?
As we continue to face a major environmental crisis due to the increasing volume of single-use plastics polluting our waterways and oceans, #PlasticFreeJuly — a growing counter-plastic movement — is gaining strength.
With humble beginnings as a grass-roots event in Western Australia in 2011, Plastic-Free July has become a global movement of people who “choose to refuse single-use plastics” for one month each year.
In this case, the generic term “single-use plastic” goes beyond plastic straws, bottles, bags, and coffee cups. It refers to any instance when you are using a product with plastic packaging that will be thrown away immediately once opened or used.
In July 2018, over 2 million people from 150 countries pledged to ditch single-use plastics as part of the pledge.
Andrew Gibbs, the founder of The Dieline, decided to take the pledge and go single-use plastic-free for a month. He documents his entire experience, challenges, and learnings while abstaining from single-use plastic products, while breaking it down to an attainable level for regular peeps like you and I. You can read more about his experience here.
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Designing a voice-based user experience for Sonos
With the rise of voice-based technologies, Sonos partnered up with Portland-based Instrument to rethink how voice control could integrate seamlessly into their broader home ecosystem and to redesign their digital app.
Ingeniously tackling a very complex usability system, Instrument created a user flow that simplifies the multi-room user experience and bespoke speaker configuration in a beautifully designed black-and-white digital app with a strong minimalist aesthetic that could’ve very well been orchestrated by Steve Jobs himself.
“Our goal was to create a design system that harmonizes the app with the hardware and brand. We took visual cues from their industrial design, and reduced elements to their purest form, letting users discover and listen to new music with exquisite simplicity.”
– Jordan Sowers, Associate Creative Director at Instrument
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Drop the shadow: Rolling Stone unveils their updated logo
Since inception, the Rolling Stone logo has had a couple key characteristics in each evolutionary variation: a stylistic swash on its “R” and a level of visual dimensionality with some version of a drop shadow.
Designed by Jim Parkinson, who conceived the more modern version of the logo that most of the readers have become familiar with today, the new redesign manages to keep the equity while paying homage to the brand’s history.
With the latest brand update, its typeface remains with only some light alterations, and the swash on the capital “R” is as predominant as ever.
For the first time ever though, the logo will not have its faux shadow anymore, which is as much part of the brand as the name itself.
The new move helps to shed visual weight and nostalgic baggage, allowing the publication to move forward in a more streamlined way with a design that makes more sense for today’s visual landscape.
“Welcome to the new Rolling Stone. As of today, we’ve given both our magazine and our website complete makeovers. Starting with our current issue, featuring Cardi B and Offset on the cover, the magazine appears in a big, bold, glossy format, with more pages and richer photography. Each issue will feature more new music, more political coverage, more of the best and brightest in pop culture. Our logo has also undergone a subtle but significant update.”
Futurist Design of the Week
Backbone Branding created this futurist and Hadid-esque bottle design as a promotional item for Messier 53, a boutique hotel inspired by the French astronomer.
“Messier 53 (M53) is a boutique hotel with 53 rooms, named after the French astronomer who was the first to compile a catalog of astronomical objects. The main essence of the brand is the spirit of discovery that takes you to a mystic journey through the universe. Accordingly, the brand emphasizes the power of imagination and motivates the guests to explore something new and extraordinary.”
