 Trademarks are like our clothes or behavior. They can be severe or kind, they change with time or fashion.
For a long time, visual messages communicated features which are important for companies: power, caliber, stability. You had to respect and treat these trademarks with distinction, as if they said “We are a reliable and established company!”
The world has changed drastically; it has become dynamic, “virtual”. For a customer, a powerful company means “not interested in me and my small problems”. You can respect strong companies, but it is difficult to love them. Meanwhile love is the best possible emotion for a trademark.
Companies which have caught the fresh air of these new times have changed the language and appearance of their logos. They are not saying “We are big”; instead, the message is “We are open”. Closed type-fonts are being changed with open ones (you can distinguish them, for instance, by the space between the endings of the letter “C”). The sense is clear: an open type-font means an open company.
 Big letters are out of fashion; even capital letters are changing to smaller ones. Today, less pathos and more feelings are good.
Inclined type face is often used because striving to be mobile and dynamic is important like never before.
The letters of new logos have become lighter, the strokes smoother and thinner. Lightness and elegance reflect new attitudes to the material world.
Color is no less important for branding. It is the first thing a person notices. It is the most active signal for the consciousness. A bland color combination, or an indistinguishable trademark is not good, a consumer can give up looking for the familiar color combination of your product and buy a competitive product. That is why color distinguishing on shelves is so important, as well as other distinguishing features compared to competitors such as color combination recognition and utilizing stereotypes of color perception.
Several years ago Pepsi changed its color drastically and carried out a global “blue” advertising campaign. Santa Klaus changed his red coat for a blue one, blue billboards and the blue logo appeared. In London hundreds of conventional red telephone booths and omnibuses were repainted overnight.
The effect was noticeable, but the main thing was that the company succeeded in positioning itself differently from its main competitor, and showed this difference with color, positioning the trademark as free, protesting, breaking traditions, i.e. “modern”, “youth”, “non-cola”. Mostly it is not just one color which is understood, but a combination of colors.
Many contrasting colors at once discourage perception; an object oversaturated with colors may fade against the backdrop of a street or counter, and a customer will see a smooth grey. Hence, a request to add some more colors in order to make a product more visible is doubtful. It is more correct to focus on one or two colors. However, in our case all the rainbow colors were used. A symbol for the Pozitronika chain of outlets was made in order to transmit the message - “positive devices”. Of course, this required a big white space around it. The modern trend in color is using bright and light colors which carry friendly emotions.
So, by changing the type-face and colors you can manage the features and face of a company or product in the customer’s mind.
These trends are not anything exotic for Russia. Rebranding and the redesign boom are continuing here. Logos created in 1990s are being remade. BeeLine, Vneshtorgbank and Siberia/S7 are among the pioneers. Most of big state-owned companies lag behind. However, for them it is especially urgent to get rid of the image of a bureaucratic monster because a new logo can help them see a new style of management and understanding of current tasks. | 
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