Landor’s latest for a financial company is a re-worked logo. Fiserve’s Chief Executive Jeffery Yabuki, performs the squawk of shame for the Journal Sentinel:

The new logo, which is the word fiserv. – with a period – is orange because it’s different from the common industry logo color of blue and “has a certain heat and energy to it, but not the kind of danger you perceive when you see red,” Yabuki said.

No red menace here.

Red bad. Red is color of Danger. Danger bad for financial company image.

Unless of course you can sell it to another financial client. From the bowels of the Landor site:

Landor created an identity and retail space for HSBC Direct. The use of white communicates the simplicity of the brand, while red projects a contemporary attitude.

Don't be alarmed, it's just HSBC Direct's Landorian luminosity.

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Landor founder, Walter Landor gazing inappropriately at his half-son, Blandor.

Says Blandor the Imponderable: “I fondly recall Poppy and I attending the semi-annual wisdom tooth convention. As we sat on our haunches, grooming each other and eating our sack lunch of turkey biscotti and marshmallow toast, we would randomly jump up and shout, “Wottle up the bull throttle!”. We would then travel the 3 hours home, in complete silence, until our arrival at Mandible Station.”

More on the misspent journey of Blandor’s life.

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“Insert the proprietary Landor Naming Process Tool into the anal canal and twist until it grabs the membrane. Continue twisting another half turn, then steadily pull the proprietary Landor Naming Process Tool out of the canal. Extract 10 inches of membrane, tie the membrane off and cut.”

As with any process, the only true measure of success is what comes out the other end.

Says Blandor the Imponderable: “Oh deer! Perhaps I should butt out….No! My auricular has been opened, laid bare for all to observe! This time, no amount of blandiloquence will assuage this insolent corporate sabotage! And furthermore, we use a much larger mammal in our current work”

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream – acquired by Unilever in 2000 – was a pioneer of faux-naif design, with its cartoon pictures of cows, clouds and daisies, smile-in-the-mind copy and child-like handwriting. Some see Innocent’s branding as an imitation of Pete & Johnny’s smoothies, which created the UK smoothie market in 1994 and adopted a Ben & Jerry’s, child-like style. Acquired by PepsiCo in 2005, the brand was renamed PJ Smoothies and relaunched with a cold, corporate look by Landor Associates, which failed to strike a chord with consumers.

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Landor Associates, one of the world’s leading strategic branding and design consultancies, today announced the appointment of Anthony Shore to Global Director, Naming & Writing. Shore was previously Creative Director of Naming & Writing at the San Francisco office of Landor.

In 2006, Shore was charged with establishing and leading Landor’s first naming-oriented Global Knowledge Sharing Team to optimize processes and resources worldwide. This resulted in a significant increase in naming assignments and an advancement of Landor’s capabilities in this area.

Charlie Wrench, Chief Executive Officer of Landor, said, “Over the course of Anthony’s career with Landor, he has shown nothing more than absolute passion for his work and an increasing determination to transform Landor’s worldwide naming network into the most accomplished and catalytic group in our industry. I trust that in just a few years time, this goal will be reached and Landor will be recognized as the world’s leading naming network.”

When asked about his goals moving forward, Shore said, “Developing great names for a global audience requires a deep understanding of many local languages and cultures. It also requires exceptional creativity and a strategic brand focus. My vision is to maximize the individual creativity and collective effectiveness of the two dozen brilliant namers Landor Associates has worldwide. With fantastic naming work, we provide a fantastic return for our clients.

Naming Safety Tip # 1: When engaging in a naming exercise, ALWAYS LIFT WITH YOUR LEGS. This will greatly reduce the possibility of a Learnia.

Says Blandor the Imponderable: “I love a good Learnia, in fact it is a smashing result! Though it does sound derivative of my own work— little matter, imitation is flattery after all. Le Bon Mots!!!”

A camel named Jake wore a bush hat with the company logo. Five elephants formed a reception committee. A sea lion called Odie reclined in a golf cart. The scene in Vallejo on Wednesday morning looked like a cross between Noah’s Ark and “Jurassic Park.”

It wasn’t. Instead, the occasion was a rebranding ritual: Marine World is now Discovery Kingdom…

…”It sounds like the bastard offspring of the Discovery Channel and the Magic Kingdom,” said Anthony Shore, creative director of naming and writing at Landor Associates, a strategic branding and design consultancy in San Francisco.

“Discovery is a word that’s used a lot in the world of entertainment and theme parks, and kingdom is also hardly unique in the category,” Shore said. “They now have their work cut out for them — to help create more distinction from all of those other discovery brands.”

Says Blandor the Imponderable: “My Willy hasn’t been this free in decades! Alas, I feel the pounding hooves of our PR Emergency Response Team in the corridor. Twas a brief dalliance… “

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Fillboard (TM filed 1998)

Astrium (not a gay bar – 2000)

Tality (again, not a gay bar – 2000)

Chancellor Academy (date unknown. only web reference to this name change resides here)

Certegy (2001)

Clarica (1999)

Exostar (2000)

EverCare (1999)

Advantix (TM filed 1995)

Durex (yes, the penis people – 1998)

Midea Group (“Formal registration and application of the brand” – 1981 )

ProNational Insurance (1998)

Spherion (2000)

Techint/Tenaris (2001)

Pactiv (1999)

Flipside (circa 2000, dead dotcom)

Uniqa (1999)

Wildlife Conservation Society – We can’t pin a date on this donkey, but they had been calling themselves “WCS”, an acronym for Wildlife Conservation Society. Landor stepped in and “Landor urged the Wildlife Conservation Society to boldly and consistently embrace its full name, and forego the acronym.”

We’re not ready to officially classify advising the Wildlife Conservation Society to call themselves Wildlife Conservation Society as a naming job, but without it Landor is left with Chancelor Academy as the only possible naming job since ’01 in their portfolio, so we’ll let it slither in.

Says Blandor the Imponderable: “Fools! Naming is about quality, not quanity! I’ll stack my portfolio up against any random name generator software anytime! As for not being currant, it’s cranberry juice I need, and in copious quantities. Your ignorance has inflamed my condition”

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Says Blandor the Imponderable: “It’s paramount that Indiana carpe diem while the fish is frying and the skillet is hot. As my putative father was fond of saying, ‘Wearing a merkin on your head is better than letting your bald spot reflect unwanted glare.’”

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Though they weren’t invited to “Get In On It” themselves, many Baltimore advertising experts are keen on the city’s new slogan to be unveiled on Wednesday at the Hippodrome.

“Get In On It” is the city’s new tagline developed by San Francisco’s Landor Associates on behalf of the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association. The nine-month, $500,000 branding campaign was met with resistance from some members of the Baltimore advertising community who thought a local agency ought to have been selected to craft the campaign.

Though some advertising executives said that a hasty reading of the tagline might make it easily confused with an invitation to “Get It On,” many thought the slogan was provocative.

Yes, “Get it on” would have been provocative, but then the slogan would have cost 167k per word, which was more than Baltimore had budgeted.

Says Blandor the Imponderable: “B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!, B’more!”

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