Nickelodeon Global Rebrand
Welcome to
New Nostalgia
Our goal for the new Nickelodeon identity was to build a playground for creativity that could enable the brand team and their partners to constantly bring new and expressive visual content to their platforms while maintaining a consistent graphic through-line. We wanted to reinvigorate the brand with new tools in order to re-capture the magic of the old days of Nick. To do this, we did look back, but we wanted to reference the past without becoming a victim of our own nostalgia. We looked to the splat and set to build a brand that could once again grow and evolve around an iconic center-point.
Mess is More
(A Mantra)
Being a kid is a fantastic mess—the kind that we find ourselves longing for after we’ve shunned the dirtiest 4-letter F-word of all... Fail...ure (ugh, we tried). Like everyone else who designs for a living, we needed to be repeatedly bludgeoned over the head with the idea that... IT. DOESN’T. NEED. TO. BE. PERFECT.
However, a brand does still needs guidelines, so while we aimed to make it actually a brand, we also reminded ourselves to run towards mistakes, and fail fantastically (something we already knew we were great at... thanks, Mom). The result was a brand guided by revisionism, surprise, and actual literal messes.
A New Splat
Our re-imagining of the splat began with looking for ways to not only simplify the shape, but to establish it as the starting point for the rest of the graphic language built around it.
Inspired by the construction of the ‘I’ from the logotype, we started with a circular grid for creating shapes.
A digital footprint in a streaming landscape.
Attribution was at the top of the list for Nick from the start. The addition of this new shape gives the brand a leg-up in recognition across platforms and devices by establishing a more prominent footprint on-screen.
Design
Construction
The graphic system was built on a circular grid, loosely derived from the logotype. We used this grid to construct the hero splat, as well as a collection of additional splat shapes that could be rendered in various forms to create the building blocks of the brand. The scale of the grid was defined by finding the simplest shapes possible, while still feeling "splat-like."
The set of geometric-yet-organic shapes created a clean-yet-ownable identity across all touchpoints. The grid construction provides a backbone to both shapes and compositions that buoys ownability. This approach also allows for future creation of shapes and assets that fit within the graphic identity.
The Fourth
Dimension
The motion system was inspired by the idea of new nostalgia. We wanted to take the character of traditional cel animation, and mash it up with 3D in a graphic space. This was paired with simple and irreverent type and other graphic animations, keeping messaging bold and simple.
We started with pen on paper... well, still digitally of course... and animated a series of logos and other splat shapes morphing, splatting, combining, swirling, and pulling apart (among others). These cel animations were converted to splines for 3D and rendered as extrudes, sweeps, and many other beautiful nerdy things.
The
Portal
We used the splats as windows into spaces behind, and as a mask to reveal various stylings of the display type. The concept of the splat as a portal emerged from experimentation with mashing styles and colors together on the page.
The layering of compositions became a module that could be swapped out in the future, with custom textured 3D type for instance swapped out in the future, with custom textured 3D type for instance.
It's About
Slime!
Slime is at the center of the Nickelodeon universe, so we went about making custom tools for slime-ing anything and everything. We created a set of C4D / X-Particles toolkits that would automatically slime type and other objects with a click of a mouse (and a little render time of course).
In addition to the C4D toolkits, we created a set of static slime elements for use in print and digital brand assets.
Typo-
graphy
The new type system pairs ROC Grotesk (Kostic Type Foundry) with narrow styles of Neue Plak (Monotype). For display types, we also built full alphabets of rendered styles of ROC in bubble letters and slime. 3D display type can be set automatically using custom scripts for Adobe After Effects.
Display type formatting was standardized and kitted into both 2D and 3D applications to allow for seamless transition between styled types. The long-game here is for Nickelodeon and future creative partners to be able to continue to add stylized alphabets that can plug into the modular system and add new exciting brand styles to the visual identity.
Orange is (Still) King
The color palette was built around the brand orange with expanded gradients of familiar color sets, and a few new wildcards.
Other Enjoyable Projects
Bobcat