Design. Charity. Life.Website and Blog of Daniel Francavilla

“May these gates never be closed,” the commentator reads. We share more than a long border, explains Tom Brokaw.

This inspiring video that explains the relationship between Canada and The United States, is a pre-recorded short film that aired on NBC prior to the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver on February 12, 2010. Yes, Canada!

The second last line of the video is the greatest.

Watch the video at this link
The original video embedded below is no longer available.

Re-Branding of well-known companies is always risky for the business, but is sometimes desperately needed to improve their image, updated their appearance, attract new clientèle, or even reflect a change in their company. Re-brands take a huge amount of money and a lot of work, so if they don’t get it right it’s a big loss!

I’ve written about a re-brand of Kraft and Walmart here, a Swiss company here, and the University of Waterloo logo controversy.

GraphicDesignBlog.org has put together a collection of 25 Redesigned Logos of 2009. Here are my thoughts on the re-designs I agree with, and ones I feel are inappropriate or even a step backward!

My thoughts on some of the logo re-designs

Do you agree or disagree with any of these?

Audi, is this enough of a change? Really, to make the font that small in relation to the logo? Nothing worth an entire re-brand for.

Firefox is a great browser, I don’t feel this logo re-design was really necessary but it did brighten some parts up which was nice.

Really like this one. Smooth, simplified name and great font. Not sure how well the blue works on top of the green background though.

MasterCard – really? Is this actually being implemented? It’s creative, a huge change compared to all their past logos, but less recognizable.

Kraft went back and corrected their first re-brand, left, for the new one. MUCH better, especially with the font choice of the tagline. Random colours in the graphic, no?

VistPrint had a great logo to begin with, at least the type was great. The new one is very fresh and is a welcome change.

I think Good Humor may have gone backwards in this logo design. Really, the second logo does not re-produce or scale as well as the red one, and it’s not as identifiable at all. Why?

I really like this change. The other one looked too industrial and became annoying after so long.

Incredible job to the designers of this logo for Union bank of California! Amazing re-design, probably the most significant out of this whole set. Great design, colours, typeface and graphic.

I think this logo for Silicon Graphics, Inc was already pretty well done, except the “g” was a bit distracting. The new one is a smooth, clean improvement.

Much better, PS3. It’s an obvious improvement, seeing how small the original logo needs to be displayed just to fit in the same size box. Very clear, awesome custom font.

Nope, I’d stick with the splat. The font choice in the new one is not effective at all, and the shape of it (a thin horizontal line) is not very useful for a TV station.

Yes, City of Melbourne! Since visiting Melbourne in 2008, I have loved their branding and municipal image. It’s so unique, so modern, so striking! A great upgrade – the other one looked like a boring Museum logo.

With this one, I definitely prefer the original logo.

Chicken Now (only in some parts of the US) looks great with this clean, modern logo, done in a style similar to many new Web 2.0 / technology sites logos!

Credits to GraphicDesignBlog.org (created all of the images)  and “Brand New”.

Even if you’ve never heard of “OCAD”, you probably know what it looks like, if you’ve visited downtown Toronto. The Ontario College of Art + Design (OCAD) which is, yes, a University, went through a major expansion into what we know it as today.

I’m excited to be studying in this “table top” or building  on “stilts” or “pencils” as some people refer to it, known as the Sharp Centre for Design. The Design faculty and classes are located up there, and other faculties are mainly located below it and across the street.

I decided to search YouTube for videos on OCAD, and there’s not as much out there as there probably should be (or at least they’re hard to find). So I’ve put a few on here to share.

I came across old video segments from 2003 and 2004, during and after the expansion was complete. It’s really interesting and pretty amusing looking back at when it was so new, before I was very aware of it. Some comments are hillarious. Some people were strongly against it, some people didn’t think it was possible. Now we go to school there and it’s a pretty iconic part of Toronto’s skyline. Enjoy the random videos, below.

Impact of OCAD’s Expansion Project, 2004 – Ideas have space

OCAD Construction and Design on Daily Planet, 2003

OCAD Extension Legs on Bravo! News, 2003

In my second year at OCAD, I went to a presentation given by OCAD’s architectt, Will Alsop, who visited from England. A very unique, inspiring man.

You’ll feel free, the “opposite of heavy” if you do!

Ask yourself: does money buy happiness? Sure shopping and new gadgets bring you excitement. But we should know that you can still be sick, lonely and depressed while rich.

After thinking of it that way, would you be surprised to see this news heading:

“Millionaire gives away fortune which made him miserable”

Well it’s true, there you have it. Having money doesn’t buy you happiness. This millionaire from Austria, Karl Rabeder, is giving away every penny of his £3 million fortune. Why? He said he realized his riches were making him unhappy.

The story definitely caught my attention. In Graphic Design class I actually just finished a Propaganda Poster assignment, and the issue I chose was “The Influence of Affluence – Are We Really Happy?”. So, this piece of news was perfectly relevant!

Rabeder is selling his luxury 3,455 sq ft villa with lake, sauna and spectacular mountain views over the Alps (£1.4 million), his beautiful old stone farmhouse in Provence with 17 hectares overlooking the arrière-pays (£613,000) and has already sold of 6 gliders (£350,00o) and a luxury Audi A8 (£44,000).

The incredible thing is that he wants to have NOTHING left, and in a Telegraph article he boldly stated:

“Money is counterproductive – it prevents happiness to come.”

Clearly he came to a tipping point in his life, was sick of consumerism, and just wanted to be happy.

The best part, I find, is that he’s giving ALL of the money to charity. He has his own microcredit charity that offers small loans to Latin America and builds development aid strategies to self-employed people in developing countries.

Do you think you’ll ever get to the point where you feel you’re slaving for things you really don’t even need? Will you live modestly, make a difference in other’s lives and be satisfied? Will you re-think your goals and money-hungry attitude? Or will you get out there and make big bucks (but perhaps be lonely or feel empty later)?

I’m not saying money is bad, someone else said that already. But I’ll definitley encourage us to take Mr. Rabeder’s life-changing story seriously!

I wasn’t around yet in 1985 when the original “We Are the World” video was released, but have definitely heard about it’s impact and the attention it received. Why? Because it’s not every day that nearly 100 celebrities come together to record one video! It never happens at all. Even at huge award ceremonies, they’re not performing together but instead just sitting in the same room – never mind different generations of celebrities coming together for a cause. This year’s song is aiming to raise funds for earthquake relief in Haiti.

The “We Are The World 2010″ video debuted at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics Opening Ceremonies, which I think was a perfect setting considering the ‘world’ is together at this time and the Games draw record television audiences worldwide. Here is the video:

We Are The World 25 For Haiti song and video was directed and produced by Paul Haggis and Quincy Jones. Over 80 artists had a part in it, including Pink, Miley Cyrus, Barbra Streisand, Jonas Brothers, Jackson Family members, Justin Bieber (why?), Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, and Tony Bennett. Yes, a very random combination but of course it is a great display of how the world can come together in times of need.

I personally purchased both the Song and the extended Video on iTunes. You can do so here.

Official description of the recording:
The 25th Anniversary recording features over 80 artists and performers. The recording of We Are The World 25 For Haiti embodied the same enthusiasm, sense of purpose and generosity as the original recording 25 years ago. Every one of the artists who participated, regardless of genre or generation, walked into the room with their hearts and souls completely open to coming together to help the people of Haiti.

You can watch the Behind the Scenes Videos here:
Interviews Part 1 | Interviews Part 2

The official website of We Are the World is
www.wearetheworldfoundation.org.

You can also contribute and learn more using this tool: