You can't miss: blog redesigns and renovations

During this past week, The Ministry of Type has posted new articles four times. The blog apparently hadn't been updated because the owner was redesigning the blog. The new blog is easier to navigate, and the overall design is cleaner and more streamlined.

The owner also redesigned the blog's logo, which is something that was of special interest to me since I just finished working on logo designs for SJI. Here's a screenshot from the site that shows the logo's progression over the years. I really like the new, simplified logo. I generally think that when a design element is simplified, it almost always looks better. Thus far, this ideology has held true based on my experiences with VOX Magazine.

You should definitely check it out when you have a chance.

After getting acquainted with the new display, I started thinking about why blog redesigns can be good. I began searching to find some good information about bettering a blog. BloggingExperiment.com outlines some of the benefits that can come from redesigning a blog. If you're interested in professionally blogging for a company, AnotherBlogger.com offers advice on how to build a better company blog. The advice in both of these articles can be applied to personal blogs for those wanting to increase their readership, so get to reading and rejuvenating.

You can't miss: branding and logo redesigns

As the due date for our 20/10 logo competition looms, I've been looking for some more inspirtion on how to branding and designing a successful company logos. The blog I've been following, Ministry of Type, features an article that showcases some really successful logo redesign concepts by Antrepo for products that range from Pringles to Durex condoms. Generally, the new concepts are much simpler (in a precise, content driven way, of course) than the originals. It's important to note that these redesigns are neither commissioned by the companies nor implied to be actual the designer as redesign proposals.

Image courtesy Ministry of Type

I'm not a fan of the simplified Corn Flakes box, as it doesn't really entice me to buy the cereal. I don't think the new Pringles cans are too great, either, but that might just be because the two examples shown are red and green, ha. I do find the Durex box and Nutella jar to be especially successful, though.

Michelle Pais showed me this really cool website last week, and I wanted to share it with you guys, too. Under Consideration.com maintains a few different, really interesting design blogs. One of them is Brand New, a blog that looks at company branding and logo redesigns. They're really cool and modern, and they might be helpful for everybody to look at as we develop logos for our 20/10 project.