It's a bit of old news but it's well worth to mention anyway. Last September USA Today unveiled a brand new image for their brand, getting rid of their original logo that was used from their very beginnings. Their former logo is a classic example of 80's graphic design with bold lettering and early-digital-age style globe. Their new image embraces the minimalistic trend, with the simplest figure they could go for: a plain, flat circle accompanied by the name in a bold sans serif font. The most distinctive factor though is the use of different colors to differentiate the newspaper's categories, so in their printed edition each section is accompanied by its correspondent color.
Old logo
New logo
Wolf Ollins was in charge of this re-branding process, which included a refresh of their masterbrand logo, full redesign of the newspaper, creation of a flexible brand system and content strategy. Needless to say this breath of fresh air came in the right time, USA Today is now looking like it belongs to the current times instead their already dated look. The new logo itself looks like the epitome of minimalistic design, as its simplicity couldn't get any better. It really works though, it makes a statement without being invasive and it allows to a lot of flexibility when it comes to different applications, hence the different colors to separate the categories. The only question left is, will it outlive the trendiness in the future? We'll have to wait and see.
