A B-Side BY Armin

The Kubert School

Established in 1976 as The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in Dover, New Jersey by renown comic book artist Joe Kubert, the institution has changed its name to The Kubert School and introduced a new identity. The website Comic Book Resources has an interview on the new branding with Kuber and his two sons, Adam and Andy, comic book artists themselves.

Thanks to Matt Rower for the tip.

A B-Side BY lauren

Xavier University

Founded in Cincinnati, OH in 1831, Xavier University is the sixth oldest Catholic university in the United States. They recently developed a graphic identity plan in order to “maintain brand identity and to provide consistency in the look and messaging of all University communications.”

Thanks to Kyle Schutte for the tip.

Opinion BY Armin

MIT Media Lab, Full of Squares

Founded in 1985 by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Professor Nicholas Negroponte and former MIT President Jerome Wiesner in an I.M. Pei-designed building, the MIT Media Lab is one of the world’s most renown research and development centers. Funded by corporate sponsorship, the Media Lab counted with a $26 million budget in 2009 – 10 and served 138 graduate students and 28 faculty and principal investigators. “Unconstrained by traditional disciplines, Lab designers, engineers, artists, and scientists work atelier-style in close to 30 research groups conducting more than 400 projects that range from neuroengineering, to how children learn, to developing the city car of the future.” Inspired by the facility’s expansion in 2010, which “manifests the spirit of transparency, mutual inspiration and collaboration” this new logo designed in collaboration by E Roon Kang and TheGreenEyl was recently introduced.

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Opinion BY Clinton Duncan

Old School goes New School, Sort of

Established in 1850, the University of Sydney is Australia’s first and oldest University. Here we have what’s known as a “sandstone university,” — an unofficial moniker attached to those institutions regarded as the older, and more prestigious — it’s like using “Ivy League” as a shorthand for privilege, class, establishment, achievement, etc. In a rather long-distance collaboration, the University was rebranded last year/early this year by Lippman Hearne in Chicago, who created the strategy and logo, and Moon Sydney, who handled the identity.

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A B-Side BY Armin

Western Washington University

Finally! A university logo designed by one of its students: “During research, [Western Washington University’s] strong sense of place — its beautiful location near the Cascades and beside Bellingham Bay and the Puget Sound — was a primary quality about Western that inspired prospective students and others. As such, the abstract logo design — by Western student Branson Anderson — captures Western’s unique sense of place: the soaring beauty of Mount Baker and the waves of nearby waters.” Links to press release and online brand guidelines. Founded in 1893, WWU is funded by the state of Washington and has approximately 14,000 students.

Thanks to Alan Hussey for the tip.

Guest Opinion by Rietje Gieskes posted BY Brand New

Vul het zelf maar in (Fill in the blank)

Established in 1947, Design Academy Eindhoven, one of the Netherland’s most prestigious design schools — Tord Boontje is among its celebrated alumni — has recently debuted its new multi-versioned identity. The structure is based on an abstracted “E” and is the framework for infinite iterations of the school’s name and messaging, most created by the students and faculty themselves.

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Opinion BY Armin

X Marks the Intersection

Founded in 1886, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) is a well known and regarded college offering students graduate and undergraduate degrees — in academic programs like Graphic Design, Advertising, Fine Arts, Photography, and even Comic Art — from the cold confines of Minneapolis. Yesterday, MCAD introduced a new identity designed by MCAD DesignWorks, an MCAD-run design firm that does work for the college as well as outside clients and is staffed by MCAD students and led by J. Zachary Keenan. The new website was designed by Little & Company and developed by The Nerdery, both Minnesota-based businesses.

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Opinion BY Armin

Not Your Parents’ Librarians

With campuses in Copenhagen and Aalborg in Denmark, the Informationsvidenskabelige Akademi (IVA for short and “The Royal School of Library and Information Science” for English) serves around 1,000 students ranging from undergraduates to PhD candidates in the field of library and information sciences and it operates under the Danish Ministry of Cultural Affairs. Facing the challenge of being considered behind the times, the school recently changed to its current name from the previously old-fashioned moniker of Danmarks Biblioteksskole (Danish Library School) and introduced a complete new identity by Danish studio Make.

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Opinion BY Armin

Forward-Looking Phoenix

Founded in 1976 to serve working adults seeking higher education who couldn’t attend a traditional university environment, the University of Phoenix (UOPX) is currently the largest for-profit university with more than 420,000 undergraduate and 78,000 graduate students. Most students take their courses and complete their curriculum online but can also attend classes at one of the 200 nondescript “campuses” (in quotes, because they are mostly beige buildings that don’t trigger notions of idyllic campuses) around the U.S. — in fact, they state that there is a campus “within 10 miles of 87 million Americans.” UOPX has long been under scrutiny because of the perceived lower level of education and standards that other universities strive for, and it also receives Federal funding for loans despite being a very profitable enterprise. And some frown upon their athletics program which consists not of teams playing in divisions but of buying the naming rights to the University of Phoenix Stadium where the NFL Cardinals play; they were also a big sponsor in the recent LeBron James spectacle where he announced his move to South Beach. But all this is just baggage lugging around a recent redesign of identity the university has gone through internally.

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Opinion BY Armin

Big W, Little W, what begins with W?

Twelve miles from Boston, lies the picturesque campus of Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Founded in 1875, Wellesley is a women-only liberal arts college that has consistently been ranked as one of the top in the U.S., most recently in the number four spot by the 2010 U.S. News and World Report. Graduates of Wellesley include Madeleine Albright, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Nora Ephron, and Diane Sawyer. Fictional graduates include Sigourney Weaver’s character in the movie Working Girl, Brittany Murphy’s in Just Married, Candice Bergen’s in the show Boston Legal, Chandra Wilson’s on Grey’s Anatomy, and, potentially, Lisa Simpson. Earlier this year, Wellesley redesigned its identity with the help of Base.

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