Corporate design projects can still be submitted for the 10th Corporate Design Award until February 8. The closing date has been extended by ten more days. Nine different awards are also up for grabs this year. The International Corporate Design Award has been judging German-language work from Switzerland, Austria and Germany for ten years. In recent years, the award has become the leading prize for outstanding design in corporate and marketing communication. The nominated projects are published in the specialist publication "Corporate Design und Markenbildung 2007" by Varus Verlag (Bonn). Anyone wishing to contribute to the benchmarking of branding and design solutions from Germany, Austria and Switzerland can enter and register online. 

The Press Council has issued its assessment in four complaint cases. The complaint by the Elektrizitätswerk des Kantons Thurgaus against the St. Galler Tagblatt was upheld. The Rote Anneliese was reprimanded and the Züri Rundschau disregarded human dignity in a commentary, in the opinion of the Press Council. The complaint against the Swiss newspaper Confédéré could not be dealt with due to pending court proceedings, as reported by the news agency SDA. In a commentary on April 1, 2006, the Thurgau edition of the St. Galler Tagblatt violated the freedom to comment by accusing the electricity company of the Canton of Thurgau (EKT) of usury. The Press Council thus upheld the EKT's complaint against the newspaper, as the commentary had distorted facts and made accusations that could not be substantiated.
When journalists make serious accusations, they have to let the accused have their say. Rote Anneliese omitted this in an article about a major construction project and has now been reprimanded by the Press Council. In the article, the newspaper accused the initiator of the large-scale project of putting pressure on landowners to sell their plots.
In a commentary on paedophiles, the free newspaper Züri Rundschau violated their human dignity. The author of the commentary demanded that paedophiles should have their limbs cut off, be tortured and then killed. In the newspaper of 11 August 2006, she also criticized the judges who only condemn paedophilia as a trivial offence. She called for draconian punitive measures and accused the courts of naivety. The Press Council approved the complainant's criticism, as a commentary is given freedom and human dignity must be preserved. On the other hand, the complainant's second complaint was rejected. In it, the commentator was accused of making unacceptable remarks about the legal system. The Press Council did not consider the author's criticism of the courts to be unjustified accusations, as it was not aimed at specific courts or judges.
The Press Council was unable to deal with a complaint lodged against the newspaper Confédéré by the Secretary of the Central Association of Magistrates, Teachers and Civil Servants of the State of Valais. As the association has also taken legal action against the newspaper and this court case is still pending, the Press Council is unable to deal with the complaint. In a commentary dated March 31, 2006, the editor responsible condemned the association as authoritarian and fascist and called it a remnant of the Vichy regime.

TeleZüri welcomes Tina Näf as a new employee. She has been working as a sales consultant at the city broadcaster TeleZüri since January 16. In the past, she has already gained a lot of experience in television and radio.

The St. Gallen-based company Creapolis launched the first Swiss newsletter directory at Newsletterportal.ch at the beginning of the year. Numerous electronic newsletters are already registered on the portal, providing Internet users with a wide selection of newsletters for their everyday interests - without spamming their mail account. The variety of topics ranges from sport, education and nutrition to home, garden and vehicles to politics, business and associations. It is simple and straightforward for companies wishing to add their newsletter to the portal: Just enter the Internet address and announce the content of the newsletter in a short description. Creapolis' work focuses on the conceptual and visual design of communication content and its distribution.

Three schools of the Kalaidos Education Group Switzerland have joined forces in bilingual teaching. The communications agency Guhl/Partners in Zurich's Seefeld district has brought together the courses offered by the various schools as an overall offering and transformed them into a single brand. An intense shade of blue characterizes the new logo. Color codes such as yellow, red and green are used to differentiate between the levels. Moments from everyday school life are shown in black and white photos. The texts are in German and English.
The new identity was implemented at the start of school at the end of August. From January 2007, the offer will be advertised to the general public in German-speaking Switzerland with advertisements in education specials and the most important titles in the daily, Sunday and specialist press.
The SIS Swiss International School is made up of the Institut Minerva Zürich, the Lernstudio Junior Zürich/Winterthur and the Minerva Schulen Basel. It aims to appeal to children from German-speaking and international families and covers the age groups from 3 to 19 years,

The Minz agency for visual communication in Lucerne is further expanding its consulting and design capacities. On the one hand with the addition of Priska Blum and Ivo Widmer, and on the other hand with the strategic further development of the Minztrument - the agency's own consulting tool. The Minz team has grown continuously since it was founded in 2003 and now comprises five consultants. The agency's overall appearance is also new and completely revised. Priska Blum (46) joins Minz in the back office. She has extensive experience in management consulting, IT consulting, organization and administration. Ivo Widmer (19) is completing his three-year training as a qualified graphic designer at Minz.

Hugo Bütler is retiring on March 31, 2007 after four decades of intensive work for the editorial team and the NZZ Group. He was previously Head of Journalism and Chairman of Group Management for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Bütler joined the NZZ's domestic editorial team in 1968 and took over as Editor-in-Chief of the NZZ and Chairman of the Executive Board at the beginning of 1985. When the holding company was founded in 1999, Bütler took over the Group Management. A year ago, Bütler handed over the editorship of the NZZ and the chairmanship of the NZZ management to younger hands; since then he has contributed to the success of the generational change in the management bodies and to the strategic realignment of the NZZ Group.at its most recent meeting, the Board of Directors of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung adapted the management structures of the NZZ Group to the new overall corporate strategy. The Group Executive Board, which previously consisted of three people (Hugo Bütler, Beat Lauber, Alfred Hümmerich), will now be made up of the members of the NZZ Executive Board (Markus Spillmann, Daniel Hofer, Alfred Hümmerich) and the management of Freie Presse Holding, FPH, which is responsible for the regional media holdings (Beat Lauber, Alfred Hümmerich). In future, it will comprise four people.
The Group Executive Board stands between NZZ and FPH in Group-relevant transactions and reports to the Board of Directors of the holding company. The Board of Directors remains unchanged with eight members under the chairmanship of Professor Conrad Meyer, but in future will also include the Board members of the two subsidiaries NZZ and FPH.
Alfred Hümmerich, Chief Financial Officer of the Group, will become the new Chairman of the Group Management Board. Markus Spillmann, Head of Journalism and NZZ Editor-in-Chief, will remain Chairman of the Executive Board of NZZ; FPH Managing Director Beat Lauber will continue to serve as Chairman of Freie Presse Holding.
With this adjustment, the Board of Directors intends to grant the two business divisions NZZ and FPH the greatest possible operational independence in their strategic development, while at the same time making the best possible use of the synergy potential within the Group.

The Zurich agency Heads Corporate Communication has been commissioned to support the University of Zurich in communicating its 175th anniversary. In the anniversary year 2008, Switzerland's largest university will present itself under the motto "Sharing knowledge." and organize various projects and events. The choice was made following a multi-stage selection process. One of the aims of the planned activities is to bring the achievements of the scientists closer to the public during the anniversary year.

New tool - new advertising platform. That's what many a clever Australian thought last weekend. After the Google empire announced that it would be taking new aerial photos of the Sydney area for Google Maps/Earth, some people unpacked their advertising banners and messages in the field. Google took the pictures from a height of just 600 meters and probably discovered one or two marketing messages or the website of a start-up company after the shoot. However, the guerrilla campaign did not trigger only positive reactions. Some suspect that Google is colluding with the advertisers. What's more, so-called roof advertising is likely to become mainstream in the near future, meaning it is already passé; and could therefore also trigger a negative advertising effect.

Adcom Communication has filled the position of Managing Director. Fritz Kuhn brings with him many years of agency experience, including positions at Euro RSCG, Lowe and Publicis. At Adcom, Kuhn is responsible for the further expansion and profiling of the full-service agency, which counts companies from various sectors among its clients. Adcom Communication is part of the Adcom Group in Zug. The group currently employs over 135 people.

The Swiss advertising agency continues to grow. Peter Iten took up his position as Art Director at the Zurich-based advertising agency today, Monday. Two years after its launch, the agency now has nine employees.

As in previous years, the French-speaking Swiss continued to watch TSR television in French-speaking Switzerland in 2006. The market share rose by 0.7 percentage points to 32.3% last year, according to the news agency SDA. During prime time between 6pm and 11pm, the market share even reached 39.3% (+1.2%). The Football World Cup and individual broadcasts of the Olympic Games in Turin contributed to this increase. The World Cup round of 16 final between Switzerland and Ukraine achieved the highest audience share of 499,000 viewers. The most-watched Tagesschau was broadcast by TSR on January 9, 2006, when the program was shown on the channel for the first time in a new design. TSR's internet portal is also popular with the French-speaking population and is now the most visited information website in French-speaking Switzerland with 61,158 visitors per day.