Logo News: Heineken
Posted: September 19, 2011 Filed under: Food & Drink, Logos & Branding | Tags: Art, branding, corporate, design, Heineken, identity, logo, logo-type, news 14 Comments »
Heineken is a Dutch beer brand owned and distributed by Heineken International. Today they launched a new corporate identity designed by Amsterdam based VBAT that will be implemented across their website, internal documents and printed collaterals while the popular beer branding will remain the same.
“At the heart of the new company identity is a re-designed HEINEKEN name, appearing in capital letters, complemented by a red spark to represent the spirit and energy of the company’s more than 70,000 employees worldwide. The logo will appear on all corporate publications, printed materials, the corporate website (www.theHEINEKENcompany.com) and will be used in some capacity by the majority of its operating companies worldwide.” – Press release
This seems to be a distancing exercise between corporate activities and the core product, freeing it up to pursue other avenues and sponsorships without being too synonymous with the product and the advertising limitations alcohol has in some countries. The new logo-type, set in upper-case and with a darker green tone, succeeds in edging it towards a more corporate sensibility while drawing on the heritage associated with their original identity created in 1864. The individual letters forms are significantly more modern in their taller resolution with subtle characteristics that avoid the logo-type becoming too generic. The small serifs on the H and N give a bit of movement but the ample spacing renders the overall execution quite static. The iconic red star associated with the beer has been replaced with a spark across the H and suitably represents the dual ideas of energy and spirit but in a fairly straightforward manner (a star within a star) that manages to build on the quality and heritage of its primary product while introducing corporate values.
An international roll-out will begin in October.
Not an improvement. At all.
Thanks for your comment, what do you think of it as a corporate repositioning exercise beyond just the visual treatment? I think that it’s a smart idea to move the international brand away from a singular and fairly limited product line, to some degree a visual division has to occur and in this instance the balance between heritage, forward movement and a corporate stature has been neatly achieved.
Heineken is my favorite beer. When I sit down and have a cold one I want to relax. The new design is not laid back. Its rigid and “corporate,” not exactly something I want to be reminded about when I come home from my “corporate” work day.
This won’t be appearing on the bottles, it’s just a top level corporate change.
I like it, but where is the ®???
I think maybe it needs to be more unique.
So they want to distance themselves from the 1864 values, capitalizing , moving from a serif to a sans serif font…. that’s branding for you. I don’t get the font, don’t know what is doing there. As long I don’t see this nonsense I’m ok, keep it for their employees .
Don’t get me wrong, I get the “why” , but why in the name of commonsense did it had to look like that?
Awfully similar to Castrol logo, only incorporating the texaco style star.
It’s quite interesting to read the opinions on this, I guess I’m in the minority.
The logo has lost a lot of character.
I like the deeper colours but much preferred the star of the original design. I’m not sure I fully understand the reasoning behind it and judging by your poll results, I’m not sure many others do.
First I thought this is a joke or something, but after short read I got the point of this rebranding and what I am happy about is that beer branding remains the same.
Distinguishing the company from its most popular brand should be a reasonable move but not always IMO. Here we have specific situation where Heineken beer brand literally ate the company name and it is not such an easy job to do. it is not only about changing the logo. I think that it needs much more careful approach to achieve this goal. Something more subtle, less painfull. As example of subtle distinguishing the company from a brand with simple addition of Co. abbrevation or “brewing co.” maybe etc. Everybody likes good old Heineken beer logo – it is in peoples hearts and thats why only minority will say that new on is improvement. This hurts many peoples feelings about the brand. Although I can’t say that this is a bad logo, technically and visually – I’m still more connected with the old one.
Something similar we have with Coca-Cola brand.I think they don’t have an idea to try to pull out the company’s name with some different image than one the whole world recognizes. Mission impossible. It is the name and the image of their most popular brand but as I know Coca-cola company uses the same image for corporate appearance. And it is much more than just a Coke.
Thanks Andrej really good to get another opinion on here and I think you may have swayed my opinion.
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They have gone from looking Australian.. to looking like a Christmas Deco… Type layout much better.. Colours need to change