ABC is one of the big three television networks in the United States. It has been around for over half a century and has been owned by Disney for nearly 20 years. During that time, the ABC logo changed very little with just one major overhaul in 2008, but for the past two years, ABC has been working with Loyalkaspar on a rebranding effort that has finally been unveiled.
You can see the primary iterations of the ABC logo over the years that played roles in the rebranding effort in the image above. In the ABC Brand Identity materials on the Loyalkaspar website, you can find all the details about the project. For example, Loaylkaspar explains that the rebranding effort involved looking at the entire ABC brand architecture and then reimagining it “from the ground up.” The result is described as classy simplicity—“Go back to basics. Strip everything superfluous.”
The rebranding positions ABC as an “articulate, luxurious, cinematic” brand while reverting the logo back to a design much closer to Paul Rand’s 1962 design to give it the “strength and simplicity” it lacked in more recent iterations.
The rebranding is supported by a new marketing strategy that focuses on simplicity and branding “nights” rather than “shows.” The tagline has been dropped in an effort to reduce competing messaging and again, simplify things. However, the “ABC Light” has been added which casts the logo in three primary colors: blue, red, and gold. I’m not a fan of gradients in logos, but the “light” does work well on screen. Colors will be used to brand “nights” with Loyalkaspar explaining the brand overview as 53% gold, 30% blue, and 17% red.
Without a doubt, the rebranding effort is a good one if for no other reason than getting rid of the Web 2.0 logo design that was so outdated. Everyone was rushing to revamp their logos to the hot Web 2.0 design trend back in 2008, but it didn’t take long for the trend to start dying. For example, Google dropped its Web 2.0 logo design for Chrome in 2011, and Facebook and Apple started moving away from the Web 2.0 logo design trend earlier this year.
I’m also a big fan of simplicity in logo design and brand imagery, so overall, this rebranding ticks a lot of the check boxes that I like to see in a brand identity. I agree with Armin from The Brand New who wrote, “If we assume that gradients are a must for ABC, then this is one of the better executions we will see.”
What do you think?
Image: Loyalkaspar
Lucy is Editor at Corporate Eye
