by From the M&M rebranding to Peter Saville’s Aston Martin logo, these were our biggest news from last year.
In January, M&M’s unveiled its global redesign, which was led by Jones Knowles Ritchie (JKR). The JKR team chose the ampersand to lead the new identity and signify “union” and symbolize people’s desire to belong.
The new M&M identity also featured a bespoke All Together serif typeface, which referenced the lentil shape of the candies. The owner of the Mars brand confirmed that the beloved pets had been given “more nuanced personalities” as well as new shoes.
After updating Visa’s wordmark in 2021, international design studio Mucho unveiled its work on Visa’s broader identity earlier this year.
The study says the main goal was to balance the company’s 60-year heritage with innovation, resulting in tweaks to the color of the wordmark that made it work better in a digital environment. Its new modular icon system follows the same recognizable color system and can “scale into artwork” when needed, according to Mucho.
Mucho also developed a bespoke humanist typeface called Visa Dialect, designed to be digitally compatible and highly legible on all Visa platforms.
Along with its internal restructuring, pharmaceutical company GSK changed its name to better reflect its “biopharmaceutical innovation” goals. Wolff Olins was responsible for the company’s new logo, motion assets, and bespoke typeface, designed to include curved shapes that “evoke the highly adaptable nature of the human immune system,” according to the studio’s global executive creative director. , Emma Barrett.
GSK also increased its approach to accessibility, opting for an all-caps wordmark developed by Face37, a Manchester-based type foundry, tested for legibility in digital and print uses.
This year saw the rebranding of several football clubs, with Norwich City’s move towards a heritage-inspired look being the most popular with Design Week readers.
London-based studio Somebody was inspired by the story of Dutch refugees called The Strangers who arrived in Norwich in the 16ththe Century. In addition to bringing the tools and techniques that would bolster the city’s position as a leader in the textile industry, The Strangers brought canaries that would sing as they worked. Birds and the knitting industry play an important role in the club’s new crest, typeface, icons and color palette.
Bulletproof studio rebranded the chocolate Toblerone this summer with a tweaked wordmark and a new bespoke typeface called Tobler for the signature.
After trawling through the Toblerone archives, Bulletproof creative director Nick Rees says the studio found “a wonderfully characteristic version of the 1908 Toblerone logo,” which influenced the new signature. In particular, a photographic snippet was added to the packaging for the first time, giving an idea of what’s inside.
Belgium chose to highlight its comics lineage through its new passport designed by French design and engineering consultancy Thales Group and Belgian tech company Zetes.
Depicting the antics of a young reporter and his trusty white fox terrier, Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin feature prominently in the new passport designs, as do the mischievous Blue Smurfs, created in 1958 by the Belgian comic book artist Peyo.
The ultraviolet light reveals some characters in more detail and, at the same time, has a practical purpose, since, according to the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the document was developed “in close collaboration with anti-fraud specialists from the Federal Police.” The new passport was released in February of this year.
British car brand Aston Martin underwent its first major update in 20 years, led by well-known art director and graphic designer Peter Saville. Saville called the improvements made to the brand’s winged logo “subtle but necessary” as Aston Martin sought to appeal to a new digitally focused audience.
Aston Martin creative director Marek Reichman revealed that a physical logo, crafted in Birmingham’s Jewelery Quarter, will be applied to new Aston Martin vehicles, describing it as “the first step towards wings taking center stage.” in [its] next generation ultra-luxury sports car.
In February, we reported on details shared by the Museum of London about what visitors can expect from the new museum and which designers have been appointed to work on it.
In addition to opting for the more central West Smithfield location, the museum commissioned Atelier Brückner to design The London Story exhibition space, which will house much of the museum’s collection and span 10,000 years of history.
From architectural and interior design to exhibition design projects that are also worth millions of pounds, the move will position the Museum of London as a “world-class 24-hour cultural destination” within the city.
The museum closed its old location earlier this month with the new location set to open in 2026.
Brighton-based studio Baxter & Bailey has won a competitive tender to design this year’s Royal Mail Christmas stamp set, collaborating with Kent-based illustrator Katie Ponder to bring the Christmas stamps to life.” jewel-like.”
The studio’s creative director, Matt Baxter, said that Ponder’s “colorful style” and use of “clean graphic forms” were a perfect match for the style that was required. Light is used as an important device within the stamps, emitting from a central point on each tiny image.
The nativity story is told chronologically throughout the set, which is bounded by the inward-facing characters on the far left and right seals.
In an attempt to steer clear of dental hygiene cues, Wrigley’s Extra hired brand consultant Elmwood to give the brand a new look centered around its variety of flavors.
One of the most notable changes was the star-shaped symbol above the wordmark, which was simplified into a more diamond-like shape, as well as changing the E in Extra to lower case. Now known as the “ding system,” the reinvented diamond shape wields across the brand as a graphic device.
