New logo: Prague Zoo

Prague Zoo, the zoo in the Czech capital, unveiled a new logo last weekend as it inaugurated the zoo's 81th season since its foundation in 1931. It was created by Chermayeff & Geismar in New York and features footprints of five animals: an amphibian, a reptile, a bird and two mammals - one carnivore and one herbivore.

Before lanching the pitch that led to Chermayeff & Geismar being commissioned, the zoo had tried to find a new logo through logo contests that generated unsatisfacory results.

The need to get a new logo arose from a legal dispute with the designer behind the previous logo. In the last few years, the zoo has used an interim logo.
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New logo: Blip

Blip.tv is an online platform for original web video series. This week, on December 20, it shortened its name to "Blip" and introduced a new fresh logo that had the added prestige of being designed at Chermayeff & Geismar.
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New logo: State Farm

The major American insurance company State Farm, one of the 50 largest companies in the US, announced yesterday, December 15, that it was going to phase in a new corporate identity from January 2, as it celebrates its 90th anniversary. This replaces a symbol that has been essentially unchanged since it was introduced in the 1950s. The new corporate identity was created by Chermayeff & Geismar, who simplified the classic logo by removing the words and separating the ovals.

The current State Farm logo is one of the oldest corporate logos still in use by a major American corporation. According to American trademark designs it was designed in 1953 by a forgotten firm called Whitaker-Guernsey Studio and registered in 1956. It was also a simplification of a previous symbol that included a car, a cornucopia and a fireman's cap rather than the actual words "auto", "life" and "fire". In recent years, the logo has often been used with a wordmark, as seen in the example below.
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New logo: New Leaders

New Leaders for New Schools, is an American charitable organization that supports education by recruiting, training and coaching principals. Last week, on October 18, it introduced a new look has shortended its name to simply "New Leaders", which one assumes most people familiar with the organization called it anyway. The new identity was created by Chermayeff & Geismar, with strategic expertise from The Glover Park Group, and includes a new symbol with an upward-pointing arrow.

"Our new logo has an arrow pointing upward to very clearly represent the transformational effect we aim for leaders to have on underperforming schools and the lives of students who attend them. We remain committed to dramatic versus incremental change, and we are working to increase our impact on schools and students’ lives even further." - New Leaders

Interestingly, even though the mark was only launched last week, it is already featured in Chermayeff & Geismar's latest book, Identify: Basic Principles of Identity Design in the Iconic Trademarks of Chermayeff & Geismar, which drops on October 31.
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