In early 2009, global web-services business AOL announced its departure from parent company Time Warner. Still under the name AOL, the new independent business would offer online content, products and services for consumers, publishers and advertisers. They defined a new mission: to inform, entertain and connect the world with extraordinary content experiences.

Wolff Olins created a brand identity that expresses this mission and embraces the fragmented, nonlinear online world. It’s fluid, flexible and changeable, and the name AOL is revealed through ever-changing image and video experiences. AOL’s new identity is deliberately disruptive and unlike other online media businesses. It is designed for an environment where media is no longer broadcast but discovered through conversations. The brand identity raises the bar for AOL to present new innovations and content experiences to the world. It allows AOL to leave its old world of access and enter the new world of content, a brand truly representative of a 21st-century media company.

Bold, simple, clean. Great conceptual idea and execution around the idea of being new, fresh and customizable. Great rebranding of a brand that has faded and needed to be revived.

Having seen all these iterations of the logo together, I went to the site for the first time in years. I may have thought “cool” about AOL for the first time ever. I hope it’s not a last gasp.

Liked the way the imagery works: really small and really large. Very fresh.