New logo: Metsä

Metsäliitto, meaning "Forest Union", a Finnish forestry group, founded in 1947. Yesterday, February 9, it announced it had shortened its name to Metsä as part of a corporate restructuring. The company's subsidiaries, many of which had been branded independently, will now all use "Metsä" in their names. The entire corporation is also adopting a green moose symbol. The typeface used in the logos is Benton Sans Black.Read more »

New logo: Resolute Forest Products

One of the largest pulp and paper manufacturers in North America, the Montreal-based AbitibiBowater, announced yesterday, October 11, that it was shedding its long-winded name to become Resolute Forest Products (or Produits forestiers Résolu in French). The new name will launch on November 7. According to a press release, the name was selected through an internal process, which involved submissions from employees.

At the same time, the company is adopting a new green 'R' symbol:

"The Resolute Forest Products logo calls to mind the forest in which the Company works, the paper and lumber products it manufactures, and the modern and dynamic nature of the organization. Paper products are reflected in the half-circle of the “R”, symbolizing a paper roll, as well as in the folds within the logo. The rectangular and triangular shapes, in the legs of the “R”, represent wood products and forestry. Through the use of green as a primary color, the design also depicts the Company’s determination to be a profitable business, committed to sustainability." - Press release

Current AbitibiBowater logo.

The company was formed in 2007 through the merger of Abitibi Consolidated and Bowater, and the previous logo was adopted some time after that.
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New logo: Munksjö (2010)

Northern Europe is home to vast forests - and profitable paper companies. These companies are of course concerned about their corporate identities, and only this year we've seen two major Nordic pulp and paper companies launch new logos. The Finnish paper company Ahlstrom launched a new logo in late February, while forestry products giant Stora Enso launched its "Rethink" rebrand in April.

Another rebrand which went by without much notice from the design community was the Swedish paper company Munksjö which launched a new visual identity on September 20 last year. It was created by the Stockholm brand agency Volt.

The company has gone through major changes during the last decade. In 2002, it was bought by Ireland's Jefferson Smurfit Group. The Irish sold the company in 2004, keeping Munksjö's packaging business and selling the hygiene tissue business to SCA ("hygiene tissue" = toilet paper, tampons, napkins etcetera). What remained with Munksjö was "décor and specialty paper", niche paper products of high quality.

The new logo keeps the M which has been used by Munksjö for many years, placing it inside a red triangle, with the text "Made by Munksjö" underneath. When possible, the new logo should be placed at the top-right corner, so it looks like a folded corner, symbolizing "Munksjö's role as enabler of innovative product design".

Previous logo.

The previous logo was introduced in 2005 when the M symbol was revived after its brief retirement during the Jefferson Smurfit ownership.
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New logo: CelluForce

Eleven months ago, in July 2010, the Canadian paper company Domtar and the forestry research organization FPInnovations announced joint venture to build a plant that produces a material called nanocrystalline cellulose.

Last week, on June 3, the company revealed its name and corporate identity. The venture will be called CelluForce, and the logo contains a stylized C made up of tetrahedrons.
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New logo: Stora Enso

Stora Enso is a Finnish pulp and paper company, formed in 1998 when the Swedish forestry and mining company Stora was bought the Finnish forestry company Enso. On April 20, it revealed its first new corporate identity since the merger.

The rebrand is a part of a corporate inititive called "Rethink", which went public with the new logo. The basic idea is to challenge old ways of doing things and finding new solutions inside the company and amongs its stakeholders and costumers - in short "rethinking". The company has also rethought the annual report, which has been replaced by a "Rethink Report", released with the rest of the Rethink stuff.

Suitably, the word "rethink" is at the center of the new company symbol which is "inspired by the petalless flower of the eucalyptus tree".

The new logo has been created by the Helsinki creative agency N2's Canadian-born creative director Brian Kaszonyi. A study of StoraEnso's corporate image was done by Kuulas MillwardBrown.

Previous logo.

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New logo: Ahlstrom

Companies who work with pulp and paper rarely use those words to describe themselves. One such company is the Finnish Ahlstrom which calls itself as a "high performance materials company". Ahlstrom revealed a new brand identity on February 28.

The new identity was created by the London office of Dragon Rouge.

The previous logo was adopted a decade ago, most likely in 2001. It contained an clever icon which was a stylised version of a tree. That identity was created by (archive) the Helsinki agency Porkka & Kuutsa. This was based on an earlier logo which contained an actual silhouette of a tree.
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