Postmedia Network has unveiled its brand identity, designed by Rethink Toronto. The media company, which purchased Canwest’s newspaper properties in June for $1.1 billion and announced its new name in July, said the new look embraces “both its digital-first strategy and future-focused vision.”
The word mark incorporates a forward slash and has four interchangeable colours, which the company said are best realized in digital applications.
Rethink’s head of design Jeff Harrison said creating the face of a new national media company was an exciting assignment with unique challenges. The original brief asked that the identity encompass an element of digital communication, alluding to the digital age.
“We took that as the premise for the mark itself,” said Harrison. “I wanted to keep it really simple, but still sophisticated and modern. Because they have so many media brands, we wanted to keep it super flexible for online and in social media.”
Some insight into Harrison’s process was revealed in a full-page newspaper ad announcing the company’s name in early August. The ad showed a sketchbook page with an assortment of logo possibilities in a scattered arrangement. While it actually was a page out of Harrison’s book, the real job generated more than 200 pages of sketches.
The biggest challenge, he said, was making sure the identity could last through future changes in media consumption.
“Knowing that interactive and media sources are changing so rapidly, we just tried to set them up with flexibility to adapt down the road,” said Harrison. “A lot of our early concepts didn’t allow for that, but we finally ended up in this area where it was a word mark with a strong concept, but is also open to a lot of translation online and adaptation, so it will work wherever they take it.”
