More on: ORF III

Back in October, the Austrian broadcaster ORF launched a new TV channel called ORF III, which is dedicated to programmes on culture and information. The on-air identity was created by the broadcast design agency DMC, who posted a case study on their website some time ago.

At the heart of the identity is the logo, consiting of three bars for the roman numeral III. These bars are extended into a presentation device used for trailers and schedules. The channel has three identifying colours. Grey is used for the logo, while purple and olive green represent the channel's two main topics, culture and information, respectively. Whitney and Mercury where adopted as the channel's typefaces.
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New look: ORF 2

ORF 2 is the most watched TV channel in Austria, part of the state broadcaster ORF. Its schedule has a conventional European public service profile with culture, information, regional news and German drama, unlike ORF 1 which features lots of imported series and movies.

Yesterday, December 13, it was announced that ORF 2 is going to launch a new look on January 9, 2012, almost exactly one after its sister channel ORF 1, which launched a new look on January 8 this year, altering its name to "ORF eins" at the same time.

The new on-air graphics are based around a vertical "navigation bar" at the center of the screen. The bar splits the screen into two parts, generating a theme of duality inspired by the channel's name. This is most obvious in the idents and break bumpers that feature different sets of twins, ordinary people supposed to represent the audience, not models or celebrities.

A new colour scheme of red and white, Austria's national colours, dominates all graphics, emphasising the broadcaster's strong Autrian roots and content. The logo has received some adjustment to fit wit the new graphics, removing the gap between the 'ORF' and '2' boxes.

In addition to new audiovisual design for TV continuity, ORF 2 will also launch new intros for its regional news programmes.
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New logo: Nöm

The Austrian dairy company NÖM (once an abbreviation for Niederösterreichischen Molkerei) has spent this year introducing a refreshed logo across its product range. The Austrian brand design agency Moodley has been credited for both the new logo and new milk packaging design.

The milk packaging adopted a new look, described as more cheerful and natural, back in September. However, the new logo had appeared on other packaging before that, having been around at least since the spring.
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New logos: ORF III and ORF Sport Plus

Yesterday, October 26 , the Austrian public broadcaster ORF launched two new TV channels, a cultural and informational programme succinctly named ORF III Kultur und Information and the sports channel ORF Sport Plus.

The two channels are replacing TW1, a tourism and weather channel managed by ORF. ORF Sport Plus was previously a programming block on TW1, but will now get its own channel space.

While ORF Sport Plus has a straight-forward elongated logo, while ORF III uses three trapeziums to make up the roman numeral 3. While not optimal for legibility, this solution could open the door to some creative animations in on-air graphics.

The logos of all four ORF TV channels can be seen below. ORF has apparently not aimed at consistency, using different typefaces for all logos and three different ways to express numbers.
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New logo: ORS

ORS (an abbreviation of Österreichische Rundfunksender) is the company responsible for operating television transmitters in Austria. It used to be an integrated part of the state broadcaster ORF, but became an independent company in 2005, although ORF still maintains a majority share. Its costumers include all TV channels broadcasting terrestrially in Austria.

In May, ORS introduced a new corporate identity to reflect "continous technological change". The squares from the previous logo have been replaced by cubes, representing the company's three core business areas.

Last week, the company launched a new website, with a design inspired by the new logo.
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New look: 3sat

3sat is a public television channel for the German-speaking countries. This advertising-free channel was founded in 1984 as a collaboration between the public broadcasters ZDF in Germany, ORF in Austria and SRG in Switzerland. Its schedule complements the domestic public channels in the German countries with programmes on culture and science.

Earlier this year, on April 16, 3sat launched a new on-air-look, created by the German motion design agency Velvet Mediendesign. The new look is inspired by the channel's slogan, Anders Fernsehen, which is play on words, and can mean both "Different television" and "Watch television differently".

The concept behind the new ID spots is called "The Magic of 3", and divides the screen into three parts that slide vertically to alter the image and the story. A compilation of the new idents can be seen below:



Even though 3sat doesn't broadcast in HD yet, the idents are produced in widescreen HD fomat in anticipation of a future launch. The music was produced by Largoland Musicproduction in Berlin.

Trailers and other on-screen presentation presentation uses the vertical slide effect seen in the IDs. 3sat's signature typeface is Gill Sans Bold Condensed, which is used in all on-air graphics and in most programmes originally produced for the channel. 3sat has a long relation with this this typeface, having used it for at least twenty years.

The previous on-air design was introduced on July 1, 2003, along with channel's current logo. It launched red as 3sat's signature colour, which dominates most on-screen graphics. It also included a large number of ID spots where people are filmed with "dolly zoom" effect, also known as the "Vertigo effect". The 2003 IDs were created by a production company from Frankfurt called Filmstyler, while the logo was developed in-house at ZDF. After its introduction, this graphics package has only gone through minor changes, the most significant being the switch to widescreen when the IDs were cropped.
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New logo: A1 (Telekom Austria)

A1 Telekom Austria is an Austrian telephone company. It was created in 2010 from the merger of mobilkom austria, whose primary brand was A1, and Telekom Austria. Until now, both the A1 and Telekom Austria brands have stayed in use towards consumers, and the company logo has been a combination of the two.

The logo for A1 Telekom Austria, which contained the logos for the two consumer brands.

Today, May 27, the company revealed a new look A1 brand which will replace both Telekom Austria and the previous A1 brand. The new look should be in stores by mid-June, the official launch is set for June 14. It was created with Saffron Brand Consultants, who also worked on last month's C&A rebranding.

The new A1 logo is a three-dimensional and flexible one. In fact, A1 claims this to be the first flexible telco logo in Europe. While the 1 stands solid, upright and unchanged, the A is seen at an angle and can take on different kinds of texture. This texture reflects different topics, for example, an A overgrown with grass can be used when talking about the environment.

Below you can see a few variants and what they symbolize.
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New logo: Two Heavens Creation

Two Heavens Creation is a collaboration project which seeks to promote cultural collaboration between Austria and China. It was created last year by an agreement between China Heaven Creation International Performing Arts from China and Wien Holding and Wiener Stadthalle Betriebs- und Veranstaltungs from Austria.

The logo for this project was created by Pentagram in Berlin by Justus Oehler and his team. The symbol represents the project through letters and symbolism. Two letters H (for "Heaven") lean over to form a bridge (probably representing cooperation). The bridge can also be read as a C, for creation. A "sunburst" gradient goes from red (present in the flags of Austria and China) to yellow.

The symbol on its own.

I don't know when this was launched. Pentagram's case study was published on April 27, but it is possible that the identity was launched well before that.

Pentagram (archive)

New logo: BZÖ

Alliance for the Future of Austria (Bündnis Zukunft Österreich in German, abbreviated BZÖ) is an Austrian conservative-liberal party, founded in 2005 by the controversial Jörg Haider. BZÖ unveiled a new logo in late January.

When it comes to party logos, they often follow a common theme within a country. In Italy, party logos are circles filled with lots of text, in the United States they are animals with stars and bars while Swedish parties use flowers.

In Austria, most parties seem to use rectangles with three letters in them. The new BZÖ logo follows suit and places the initials in a square with the party's signature colour, orange. The weird way to merge to umlaut into the ring in the letter Ö is carried over from the old logo.
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