[Medianext.MX]

And in Germany, Saarländische Rundfunk, the local ARD station in the South West, may have a corporate rebrand coming soon, as a new symbol can be seen in their logo files (www.sr.de ):

It started making its way into promotions as well:

No word on if their TV and radio stations will rebeand yet.

Another ARD member has rebranded today, even before SR had fully rolled out its updated brand: Hessischer Rundfunk (serving the wealthy region of Hesse and its outskirts) has unveiled a new logo, which is an updated version of its word mark, mixing elements from the previous 2004 logo and the well-known 1960s-dated word mark, but designed for better handling on digital screens and devices:



The new brand strategy was worked for three straight years (from mid-2021), with three shortlisted logos giving way to the new throwback logo:

Sourced from DWDL.de:

---

The changes are quite clear: three logos were developed, and the decision was made in favour of the "Basic" variant, which differs from the previous design by a bolder font and the omission of the arc, but the lower-case abbreviation "hr" is kept, as well as to the font. The logo is now "clearer and quickly comprehensible in the digital environment," explains the brand communication department in an internal letter that was obtained by DWDL. They are focusing here on the functionality, "without being irritated by a radical new rendition".

According to DWDL.de, a BBC Chameleon-like scenario was done for this, with workers being irritated over the high level of taxpayers' money being poured for this externally done revision:

Sourced from DWDL.de

---

[...] the decision to develop a new logo was also viewed critically by many internally right from the start. After all, the station has been on a strict budget cuts regime for a long time, and some of the workforce is irritated [...] At hr, they are trying to emphasize that no funds actually intended for the program were used and that the costs were shouldered purely by shifts in the communications budget. The vociferous complaint about the waste of taxpayers' money should not be long in coming on social media.

Since the changes compared to the previous logo are clear, the new logo and design can now be implemented gradually instead of introducing a new design at a large price. This should help keep costs under control. Most of the measures will also be implemented in-house, but an external designer was consulted when developing the new corporate design. hr did not want to quantify the expenses incurred in this connection, nor the total costs.

During the next few weeks, the HR websites and apps will get the new logo, with TV and radio channels due during the course of the second half of the year.

www.dwdl.de