Say goodbye to Pizza Hut and hello to The Hut. Actually, let's all say **** off to The Hut. This is not a change I can co-sign on.
Pizza Hut has announced that they are slowly re-branding themselves as The Hut. Sales have been in the caca box, so they are hoping this will get *****s back into their restaurants. Specifically, young *****s.
One of Pizza Hut's HBICs told Brand Week (via idsgn), "There's a big trend in general around having confidence in the foods that you eat. People over the age of 35, whose frequency with pizza is declining, said one of the big things that would reignite their passion with the category is to have a pizza made with multigrain crust and an all natural tomato sauce. And yes, we're also introducing another vocabulary word with Pizza Hut, which is 'The Hut.' That ties in nicely with (today's) texting generation. We wanted to make sure that Pizza Hut and 'The Hut' become common vernacular for our brand."
The Hut only makes me think about a giant blob of wet caca with a gaping mouth that eats anything who gets in its path. No, I'm not talking about Tommy Girl's asshole. Seriously, who wants to eat anything that comes out of Jabba the Hutt?
I can understand Pizza Hut wanting to appeal to a different audience, but calling themselves The Hut is not the answer. What they need to do is sexify their image a bit. Put on some lucite heels and strut. They should start going by Pizza ****. They can even bring back their old slogan: "Gather 'round the good stuff." If they hired the "delivery dicks" from (NSFW, duh) BigSausagePizza.com, I would order from Pizza **** every single day for the rest of my butt's life.
PIZZA HUT UPDATE: Pizza Hut spokesman Chris Fuller has replied in our comments ensuring that 'The Hut' is just a marketing effort and not a permanent name change. MSN reports: "The boxes and some store signs will say 'The Hut.' Others will retain the Pizza Hut name." In related news, Pizza Hut is launching Hut TV, an in-store video network which will allow customers to watch TV shows (like Wheel of Fortune and Entertainment Tonight) while dining at the new 'Hut' locations. Our article has been picked up by Brand New, The Gothamist, Coudal Partners, and a handful of other sites.
Oreo and Ritz at Target go Retro, just for the Summer
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2009 is turning out to be the year of retro food packaging. We've already seen Pepsi and General Mills try it out, now Nabisco is following suit with vintage renditions of Ritz crackers and Oreo cookies.The vintage-inspired packaging, from Kraft-owned Nabisco, focuses on a clean minimal aesthetic—gone are the countless gradients, glows, and warped type. While simple, it is a breath of fresh air on supermarket shelves typically stuffed with over-designed products. A nice way to reinvent a couple of otherwise boring products. The new packages were designed by Baker. Exclusive to Target, the retro look will only be around for the summer.
Microsoft Live Search becomes Bing
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Microsoft officially launched Bing worldwide, a rebranding of their Live Search engine. With a new identity and features that promise to make searching easier, will you say goodbye to Google and ‘Bing it’? Bing, dubbed as a "decision engine", is Microsoft's attempt at winning some of the search market from Google and Yahoo in a fight for advertising dollars. The name was conceived with help from branding company Interbrand, chosen for its simplistic spelling (and the fact it can be used as a verb). To launch the service, Microsoft has hired JWT for a nearly $100 million marketing campaign, beginning with a 60 second TV ad.
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Originally posted by Microsoft Press Release
Microsoft Corp. today unveiled Bing, a new Decision Engine and consumer brand, providing customers with a first step in moving beyond search to help make faster, more informed decisions. Bing is specifically designed to build on the benefits of today’s search engines but begins to move beyond this experience with a new approach to user experience and intuitive tools to help customers make better decisions, focusing initially on four key vertical areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business.
As far as the look of the site, its fairly similar. Live Search, as seen before:
Bing, as seen today:
From someone whose Live Search usage was pretty much non-existent, I don't see anything that will make me want to switch. The name reminds me of a certain character from Friends, the logo is horrible, and the site just feels clunky compared to the minimalist look of the competition... but some people seem to like it.
I don't really like the retro looks of Ritz and Oreo. They just look like unfinished packages. It sucks on composition as well, a lot of negative spaces.
Originally posted by underconsideration.com/brandnew
Let’s boil this down to simple facts to get started. Victoria’s Secret = Sexy. Trajan = Not Sexy. I assume I do not need to delve into the sexyness of Victoria’s Secret and as far as Trajan’s lack of sexiness, well, it’s really not its fault but its overuse suffered throughout the years. The problem with using Trajan as the logo for Victoria’s Secret is that it is no different than, say, Will Smith’s I am Legend or a hundred other movie posters. Mucca Design has evolved the logo of Victoria’s Secret to something that’s more unique and well crafted, taking the basic letterforms of Trajan and finessing them ever so slightly. And amazing how looser tracking adds elegance to small caps.
Mucca also created a monogram to introduce into the visual palette of Victoria’s Secret. I want to like it, but there is something wedding-like about it that doesn’t quite fit with the elegance of the new wordmark. It may be the white pieces that get knocked off as the letters intersect. Nonetheless, this is all an excellent evolution of a logo that has some major airtime in the visual landscape so it’s nice to know that it won’t just be a generic, out-of-the-box wordmark but a sexy little thing.
And, sure, you are welcome to comment with “Consumers will never notice.”
New monogram:
Mozilla Firefox's slight change:
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Originally posted by The id design blog
Although many people will never realize the change, Mozilla has just announced a new logo for the upcoming Firefox 3.5. The (slightly) refreshed identity was designed by Anthony Piraino from the Iconfactory, directed by the logo's original designer along with the team at Mozilla. As described in the extensive creative brief, the goal was to modernize the overall look of the logo. Did it really look out of date?
You have to look close (grab your magnifying glass), but the most notable differences include finer hair detail and depth shading on the fox, flames that wrap around the globe, and a few heavy coats of gloss on the globe itself. I don't know if it really looks more modern, but it is definitely more detailed. Which is not necessarily a good thing for an identity—a lot of the charm of the original logo was in its iconic stylization. But truth be told, it looks pretty much the same. The original Firefox logo was designed by Jon Hicks in 2004, based on a concept from Daniel Burka and sketched by Stephen Desroches (discussed here). Daniel Burka's concept was partially inspired by a piece of artwork found in his childhood bible (pictured above), before going though its many iterations:
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...and after all that work, it's hard to notice much difference in your toolbar:
I saw this a few days ago and thought it was a joke.
