Brand New

I’ve been thinking a lot about debranding, ever since I had a ringside seat for the BT rebrand and EE brand refresh. Here’s an overview of debranding from Ben Schott, an entry in his Branding column for Bloomberg Opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1bjkPerpPs

It’s also available in article form (behind Bloomberg’s paywall, unfortunately). My interest stems mostly from this angle:

Flat and debranded identities can also become portals for the projection of an infinite range of messages and moods. Such flexibility is especially useful for brands spanning multiple genres (movies studios), those with a range of offerings (food companies), and those that aspire to hands-on consumer engagement (political campaigns).

A few months ago, I wanted to start tracking this more, so I added “Start a blog to catalog new debrands” to my list of ideas for mini-projects. Then last week, great fortune: I stumbled across Brand New. This is exactly what I wanted to build, only much better.

Each rebrand post has the old and new logos presented side by side, making it easy to see how each has evolved. Every day one post goes into more depth, with a review and examples of the full identity. It’s been around for ages, so there’s a huge archive.

It’s easily worth the $20 yearly subscription. Even better: I didn’t have to build anything.