Brands like this often end up using the marketing images that were created during the ‘Million-Person Challenge’ actually being used for the very same reason – to inspire wonder, awe and magic moments inside audiences. We also designed a very simple typographic style to compliment the rigid grid system.The only thing we forgot to mention is the countless thousands of nights spent staging, researching, winning, losing, filming, editing, and publishing the stories that were revealed over nearly two weeks. Even without the win, the legacy of the Million-Person Challenge still has been passed on in the sheer quantity of stories that were published and edited. It created a very strong unifying brand rule for the outlet, one that stated that all content should be original, as well as for the brand itself. Finally, because the outlet’s mission was so compelling, we allowed the legacy of the Million-Person Challenge to inform the choice of fonts — a global, time-worn Italian typeface by the name of Georgescu Serif — as well as our choice of yellow as our brand color.
When I first saw the original logo it didn’t inspire any confidence in trusting the company with something like this and the new logo does a very good job in letting the crazy-assness of the crazy-assness carry a little bit of the identity but with enough of a thin handle that it can still be readable. The logo is fun and confetti-like and somehow makes a good point about the level of editing has occurred. As opposed to plastered all over the place on the website — and there is plenty — the editor’s desk barely has a height chart tape to it… yet it’s the farthest place that you can put a chart that shows sky and sea/land/water/sea AND floor and ceiling/ice/sand and it wouldn’t make a difference. The flat-color, type-on-a-curve applications are fun and look great on the website (although it does look like a default type family).