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Wolff Olins is a brand consultancy. We are ambitious for clients and optimistic for the world. Our aim is to create better realities not just a nicer image.

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      Brand Thoughts: Fashionista

      After publishing with a blackletter logo since 2007, Fashionista decided it was time to reconside and redesign its stoic face as well as swap its back-end CMS from Movable Type to Wordpress.

      The old logo was this oversized, domineering, gothic lettering thing that said “spiky, aggressive, old-school news brand.” That’s not what Fashionista is. The editors of Fashionista are excellent journalists who will be critical when it’s called for, but they’re also unashamedly fashion lovers. They might poke fun from time to time, but they’re not spiky or unnecessarily aggressive. And they’re also inherently new-generation when it comes to how they go about their business — they use a blog platform, Flip cameras, smartphones and various social media to deliver their content and engage their audience — so unless we were being very ironic with the gothic, old-school newspaper font thing it just wasn’t really appropriate. I’m also a big believer that the logo and furniture on the site should be a little subservient to the content — it’s the content that engages and the content travels well beyond the site too — so we also needed something a little less imposing.
      — Jonah Bloom, CEO/Editor-in-Chief, Breaking Media

      More treatments of the new logo at Brand New.

      via

      Janice Chow

      @janicemomoko

      Socializing the Mobile Interface

      Contact Interface

      A smarter phone

      Microsoft’s revamping of their mobile platform interface is a significant stomp into the land of usable interface that Apple has ruled since the launch of the iPhone.

      Zune is an excellent platform that was hindered by Apple’s dominance. For us Apple obsessed fools that felt fantastic but the truth of the matter is that the design and interface of Zune was insightful and effective and screamed to be transformed into a mobile platform.

      But what I find most engaging about the interface is the brand. Apple has defined “smart phone” and Google and Palm have supported that style by creating similar interfaces (actually it was Nokia who created the icon grid that the iPhone uses).

      Microsoft has done something incredibly smart here. They’ve branded the interface experience. What I find insightful about this is they’ve ignored the “lowest-common-denominator” method of user interface design and looked, instead, at what was functionally important to the user.

      It’s not icons we want, it’s information, social information.

      The interface focuses on how we use our mobile phones while branding the experience as a Microsoft of the future could look.

      (Jacob)

      Less Is More

      A reminder that design is suppose to make things simple.

      (George 3.0)