New logo: Brasil Kirin

Schincariol, a major Brazilian brewery company, announced yesterday, November 12, that it would change its name to Brasil Kirin, following its acquisition by the Japanese Kirin group last year. The new name was announced at a company event with 2000 employees and is strictly a change of corporate identity, all consumer brands remain unchanged.

The new logo combines Kirin's wordmark with the word "Brasil" in the same typeface and an icon of colourful shapes that can also be used as patterns.
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New look: Kasztelan

Kasztelan is a Polish pilsner brand that has been brewed since way back in the early 1970s. Today, it is a part of the Carlsberg Group. Polish design agency Studio DN Design Group have been responsible for the brand packaging and labels since 2006. In that time, the design has received slight incremental updates. Another such update was revealed recently and can be seen above.

The aim of these redesigns have been to transform Kasztelan from a regional brand into a national one.
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New look: DAB

DAB, which stands for Dortmunder Actien-Brauerei, is a German brewery and a beer brand owned by the Radeberger group. Sold around Europe, it was recently redesigned by an Italian agency, Robilant Associati.

The redesign carefully preserves the equity in the previous label, but opens it up gently.
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New logo: Senseo

Senseo is a coffee pod system owned by two Dutch companies, appliances producer Philips and the previously Sara Lee-owned coffee maker Douwe Egberts. Recently, Senseo has started rolling out a new visual identity, partly coinciding with the launched of a new coffee maker called Senseo Twist.

The awful typography used up until now has been replaced by a swirly wordmark. The generic coffee imagery from the previous packaging is being abandoned in favour of a simple elegant solution where the logo is placed on a colour-coded circle with concentric circles radiating from it.
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New logo: Icelandic Glacial

Icelandic Glacial a brand of mineral water tapped at the Ölfus Spring on Iceland and sold to Europe and North America. This month, the brand introduced a new label and redesigned bottle, created by Team One, a communications agency head-quartered in Los Angeles.

The new bottle is designed to stand out among other premium water, taking cultural and natural features from Iceland and the spring.
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New logo: Löfbergs

Löfbergs Lila is a Swedish family-owned coffee maker. Founded in 1906, it is today one of the larger coffee brands in the Swedish market. The name means "Löfberg's Purple" and is derived from its purple packaging. Recently, the company announced that it would drop "Lila" from its name and introduce an updated corporate identity.

Although no longer part of the name, the (literally) trademarked purple colour will still be featured prominently on the packaging. The logo has been redesigned with grotesque letters that look substantially different from the previous logo. Someone also felt that the logo needed to include a coffee bean in the letter Ö.
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New logo: May

May Company (Компания «Май» in Russian) calls itself "Russia’s leading tea and coffee producer" and sells tea under the brands Maisky and Lisma. This month, on June 15, it unveiled a new corporate identity, created by Direct Design Visual Branding, a Russian branding agency. The company celebrated its 20th anniversary last year, and the new look should reflect that by symbolizing "maturity, brightness, vitality, simplicity and stability".

The logo combines custom-made letters for the word Май with an emphasized breve (the little wedge over the letter Й), representing "optimism and a postive attitude". The breve changes color depending on division, with burgundy used in the corporate logo. The logos are supported by a graphic device with ribbons in the colors of the company divisions.
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New logo: Pripps Blå

Pripps Blå is Sweden's largest beer brand, nowadays owned by Carlsberg. Recently, it introduced a new look, designed by the Swedish agency NINE.

Originally brewed by Pripps, a brewery founded in 1828, the brand itself was launched in the 1950s under the name Pripps Export. It took the name Pripps Blå in 1975, meaning "Pripp's Blue", based on the colour of its cans. Carlsberg bought the company in the year 2000.

The new look takes inspiration from the design used by Pripps Blå in the 70s and 80s, resurrecting the crest that was present on the cans during that time, but updating it to contemporary standards. The design wants to recognise the brand's history, while also communicating anticipation for the future.

Nine have also created what it describes as a "tattoo pattern", an extended graphic made to look like an engraving. With the crest at the center, it includes images that refer both to tradition and "dream of the future". It is used on some packaging, and elements of it can also be used separately.
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New logo: Schweppes Abbey Well

Schweppes Abbey Well is a British brand of mineral water, tapped from a source in Morpeth, Northumberland. Last month, an overhauled label design that celebrates the brand's British origin, reflecting the fact that Abbey Well is the official water of the London Olympics.

The brand is owned by Coca-Cola, who bought Abbey Well in 2008 as they sought to get back into the bottled water market after the failed launch of Dasani in 2004, which turned disastrous when authorities discovered that the product contained bromate. The same year as Coca-Cola's purchase, the product added Schweppes to its name and revealed a completely new package design, created by Coley Porter Bell. The package design was updated a few years later.

The new design was created by Kontrapunkt, one of Denmark's leading design agencies, and an interesting choice for a brand exercise aimed at promoting British heritage. The interpretation of Britishness is very literal with the Union Jack in the background and a red-white-blue colour scheme. The agency says it avioded more natural themes for something that is "urban, dynamic, powerful and contemporary". The Schweppes logo has been downscaled a turned single-colour, allowing Abbey Well to build its own identity.

Although the Olympics are heavily sponsored, the actual events are advertising-free zones. For the Olympic arenas, Kontrapunkt also designed a label with the words "Still Water" in a similar typeface, pushing the IOC limits somewhat.
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New logo: Miller64

Miller Genuine Draft 64 (MGD 64) is a light beer brand from US brewing corporation MillerCoors, named after the 64 calories that it contains. This week that beer relaunched under the snappier name Miller64, and with it comes a "bold new logo" and "eye-catching smoky silver and red labels".
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New look: Ramlösa

Before.

After.

Ramlösa is a Swedish brand of mineral water, bottled in Ramlösa in the southern part of the country. The well was founded in 1707, and the water has been available in its current bottled form for about a century. Today, the brand and the bottling plant are owned by Carlsberg.

Recently, Ramlösa introduced a new label design for its retail packaging for non-flavoured water, called "Ramlösa Original". The new label was designed by the Swedish agency Nine, which has done a lot of design work for Carlsberg, including Ramlösa's acclaimed premium packaging last year (read more about it at BP&O)

Ramlösa's retail packaging was last redesigned in 2007 by the British agency JDO, who helped reposition it to target "young unisex city inhabitants with a busy and active lifestyle". It was a relatively radical overhaul of a label that had only gone through incremental changes for a century, and faced harsh criticism from an ad man who had previously worked for Ramlösa, who said Ramlösa was imitating its competitors.

This time, Ramlösa has chosen a Swedish agency, and Nine seem to stress that this is a careful update. They also say the new label provides better contrast and a clearer hierarchy. The most noticable change is that the blue line pattern has been switched for a lively image of water.
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New look: Honest Tea

Before.

After.

Honest Tea, an American company that produces organic bottled tea, is introducing a new label design for its Honest Tea brand teas and Honest Ade brand lemonades in plastic bottles this September. The new design was developed with Turner Duckworth.

The labels have been cleaned up, using white backgrounds, the logo in simple black Garamond letters and a fruit-centric image at the center, focusing on the simple ingredients of the product. Honest Tea keeps a T element from the previous design, while Honest Ade features quirky images of fruit on its label.
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New logo: Beam Inc.

Beam Global Spirits & Wine is an Illinois-based premium liquor company with several well-known global brands, the most famous of which is Jim Beam whiskey. As its owner, Fortune Brands, is intending to spin it off as a separate company, this week, the company unveiled a new name and corporate identity. The descriptors in the name are chopped off, and the company will now simply be known as Beam Inc.

Previous logo.

The previous logo, which featured an ornamental B in a red seal, is replaced by the word "Beam", based on the signature of James B. Beam, the distiller after whom the Jim Beam whiskey is named.

The new corporate identity will launch when Beam is separated from Fortune Brands, and that is scheduled for Q4.
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New logo: Brains

Brains is a regional brewery in Wales, calling itself the beer of the nation, the Welsh equivalent to Guiness. In early July, Brains unveiled new trademark designs for its cask ales; Dark, SA, SA Gold and Bitter. They were created by Blue Marlin Brand Design, who won the assignment after a pitch.

Brains claim the brief was "to evolve the brands, modernise the look, and create a unique design; all with the aim of engaging with new consumers and appealing to a wider demographic". Blue Marlin's solution re-inforces Welshness in a modern and unique way by including the tail of the Welsh dragon in the label designs.

An article about the rebrand was published on the Brains website on July 5, claiming the new design would be showcased on the Great British Beer Festival, and roll out soon after that.
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New logo: Foster's Group and Carlton United Brewers

Foster's Group is an Australian brewing group, whose primary source of revenue is its domestic subsidiary Carlton & United Breweries (CUB). Last week, the company adopted new corporate identities for both Foster's Group and CUB, whose name was altered to Carlton United Brewers. This comes a few months after the company separated from its wine business, Treasury Wine Estates.

Previous Foster's Group logo.

The different glass shapes that were used in the previous Foster's Group logo are replaced by a simple blue wordmark, where the O has been replaced with the oval from the classic Foster's beer label.

Previous Carlton & United Breweries logo.

The 'CUB' mark in the Carlton United Brewers logo has been re-arranged to raise the letter 'U', to put emphasis on the word 'united' and symbolise a raised glass. The oval shape, the a blue colour and concept of a ligature remains, as these aspects had considerable equity.

A press release about the changes was issued on July 29. The following excerpt from it provides further information about the rebrand:
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New logo/packaging: Oggu

Oggu is a new Dutch brand for 100% organic soft drinks without chemicals. The first batch was rolled out to Albert Heijn supermarkets in January this year. It hopes to roll-out to other European markets such as Germany, Belgium, Scandinavia and the UK this year.

Lemon-lime, cola and orange.

Organic Beverages, the company behind the organic soft drink, turned to Design Bridge to come with the entire brand, involving everything from naming and strategy to design. Oggu, Design Bridge tells us, is a combination of the words "organic" and "gusto" (Italian for taste). The brand positioning is "For the Love of Delicious Purity", combining the purity of a 100% organic product with indulgence and a slightly unconventional attitude.

Different label design concepts.

Design Bridge mentions t-shirt's a one of their inspirations, and the labels and other graphical elements certainly reminds one of elaborate t-shirt printing with words from different European languages in "playful" typefaces. It would be a lost opportunity if the company didn't print up t-shirts based on the labels to be handed out to costumers this summer.
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