2012 in review

To end a great year, here's a summary of the noteworthy and the memorable in brand design during 2012.

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Mr Kipling brand history

Earlier this year, you could read about a new design for Mr. Kipling, a classic British brand for ready-made pies and cakes. The history of its conception and subsequent development in the last decade is a somewhat interesting one.

The brand was created in the 1960s by Rank Hovis McDougall who wanted revitalize their cake sales, but also wanted to utilise a new bakery. When the brand launched in 1967, the range included 20 products that were sold in premium boxes with handles.

Mr. Kipling himself never actually existed, he was an invention by marketing men who wanted to give a traditional family feel for something that is actually industrially produced. This was reinforced through ads suggesting Mr Kipling was a small shop baker, specifically in TV ads where James Hayter did the voice of Mr. Kipling. A successful example of the perhaps a bit disingenuous tactic of implying great heritage where none exists.
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Spanair brand history

On January 27, the Spanish airline Spanair became one of the first European airlines this year to suspend its operations, followed by Hungary's Malév within a week, and perhaps more to come as debt-burdened governments withdraw support from loss-making airlines. To mark Spanair's demise, here's a summary of how the airline's corporate identity has changed through the years.

Spanair was formed in December 1986, and commenced flights in March 1988. The logo at the top of this page was probably the airline's first logo, a wavy orange-blue symbol and a Berling Bold wordmark. It was initially a charter airline, and the planes had a plain white livery with the symbol on the tailfin.
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Malév brand history

The end of a national airline means the end of a brand that has been a source of pride for a nation for well over a half century. The changing structure of the worldwide aviation market has seen the collapse of the likes of Sabena, Swissair, Olympic Airlines and Alitalia. Some brands were confined to history, others were carried over to a slimmer organisation formed to fill the hole left by the flag carrier.

Malév Hungarian Airlines, the Hungarian state-owned airline, is the latest flag carrier to meet this fate, as it abruptly ceased operations last week after two decades of economic struggles. Unless a plan to revive the airline is realised, this will likely mean the end of a brand that has been in operation since 1956. To mark this occasion, here's a short summary of Malév's corporate identity through its existence.
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A Lambie-Nairn showreel from 1996

I recently stumbled upon an old showreel and a presentation video from the UK broadcast design agency Lambie-Nairn that had been uploaded to Youtube by a user called "deeman3000". Founded in 1976, Lambie-Nairn established itself as a leading broadcast design agency in the late 1980s/early 1990s. These videos were probably produced in 1996 and mostly feature material created during the five years prior to that.

This was during a time when it seemed like the company strived to rebrand a channel in every European country. Aside from the acclaimed work the BBC, Lambie-Nairn also worked with other UK broadcasters as well as clients in France, Germany, Scandinavia, New Zealand, Benelux and Russia.

Although every project is unique, one can detect some recurring methods in this body of work, like many filmed sequences featuring different props or actors with heavy makeup, rather than three-dimensional computer animation. Many of these could be shown on television today, if properly remastered for high-definition, but they are of their time and would probably be considered too high-brow in today's environment.

But most of all, they are marked by a certain British wit and sober design sensibility, even in some of the fast-paced epilepsy-inducing examples.

This period was not the peak for the agency. The very next year, it would win the prestigious assignment to rebrand the BBC. Not only did the company create the current straightened-up BBC logo. The Beeb was at this point gearing up to launch a string of new digital channels, both regular public service channels and advertising-funded ones as part of the UKTV partnership, and this would provide steady work for Lambie-Nairn over the following years. If you were watching the BBC between 1997-2003, you could expect the channel branding to be created by Lambie-Nairn.

The agency also continued its international activities, delivering new branding to clients like VRT Belgium (1997), Euronews (1998), the Sci Fi Channel (2002) and LCI France (2005) as well as new Middle Eastern networks like Alhurra and Adu Dhabi TV. It would also move into non-TV branding, and was behind the successful launch of O2 in 2002.

Martin Lambie-Nairn himself left in 2008, one of his last projects being a relaunch of BBC News. Most of the creative professionals who worked with him during these years have also moved on to other agencies.

The two videos can be seen below, along with some stills and short descriptions of the work featured in them. Martin Lambie-Nairn published a book in 1997, and it provides extended descriptions of the work included in these videos. Unfortunately, it is out of print and is somewhat hard to get hold on if you aren't close to a UK library.
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Swiss Miss brand history

Swiss Miss is an American brand of cocoa mix powders and chocolate puddings. Having been with the American people for half a century, it is one those classic brands that many remember growing up with.

Thanks to the Internet, innovative companies and people willing to share their collections, we can get a good view of how the brand and its packaging has progressed through the years. A special thanks to Jason Liebig who has given me permission to use some images from his collection. If you want even more packaging nostalgia, you should visit his Flickr photostream.

Swiss Miss original logo, used from the 1960s until the mid-1980s.

The "instant cocoa mix" powder, which creates delicious hot cocoa by just adding water, was developed by Sanna Dairies in Wisconsin, who were also manufacturing instant dry milk. It was originally served on airlines. In the early 1960s, Sanna Dairies were packing the product under the name "Swiss Miss Instant Cocoa Mix" and selling it to grocers. The original packaging was developed with "old world" aestethics, with decorative flowers and an old calligraphy typeface for the logo. A newspaper article published in February 1963 explained it thusly:

"The chocolate flavor developed by Sanna Dairies is reminiscent of delicious Swiss milk chocolate... thus the name and the attractive "old world" design package."

The black-and-white image of a Swiss Miss package on the right is from a 1962 ad. It may well have been the very first Swiss Miss packaging design.
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