Comedy Central rebrand

Comedy Central launched the new brand at the beginning of January. The new logo and sleek typography was incorporated into all routes of media, from television to the web and apps. The decision for change was lead by Bob Salazar, the Creative Director at Comedy Central, who noted that the Comedy Central brand "has never been so robust and so relevant in the comedy zeitgeist". The new double "C" logo with the upside down "Central" is "the irreverent wink of Comedy Central". He adds in another interview:

“Ten years, that was the last time we did anything this meaningful. If you think of social media, videogames, and the conventional competition, it has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. Even though the brand has never been as strong, we felt that refreshing it in our promotion and our branding, was something that we felt this moment in the network’s history would be the perfect time for."

Comedy Central Brand Transformation from thelab on Vimeo.

The Lab in NYC also worked on the brand. Alicia Johnson and Hal Wolverton gave some insightful thoughts when approaching the problem of the rebrand:

Rebranding Comedy Central - A Portrait of thelab from JaegerSloan Inc. on Vimeo.

The team at the Lab invented a branding device that they felt could live in any medium. Alicia explained “the idea of this packet” which would shorten the distance between the viewer and the channel by delivering a packet to the audience through digital media, leveraging social functionality to connect the right comedy to the right audience. The goal, Alicia said, is for the packet to “behave as an object that you could share, and the object would retain branding while being screen agnostic”. This lead to a discussion on how Comedy Central could become more visible outside of the television screen: on the street, in advertising, online, on mobile platforms, tablets and smart phones. Hal cited one of the biggest challenges, “How do we get our identity to travel along with these clips that end up on YouTube?”

The solution kept restating itself. As Alicia explained “Being screen agnostic was something that just we kept going back to them on.” thelab’s solution included pages of web, tablet and mobile design comps with new navigation models demonstrating how a viewer might find the packets of content they’re looking for and what was trending, tagged or even popular amongst friends. As this structure became clear, they needed a way for viewers to identify them.

"In their pitch, thelab created the comedy mark as a branding device. The C is derived from a slide carousel of “packets” viewed from above, not unlike the Kodak Carousel Projector. This C becomes the playful center of a 3d explosion of screen caps and colors in a muted palette with elegant typography. When the action rests, the flat gothic round c, is met with a second C at the same line weight to form an incomplete circle, resulting in a c surrounded by a larger backward C. In its final representation, the mark looks not unlike the © symbol with a chunk cut out of the left side. The new symbol works in a similar spirit, effectively attributing and tagging every content packet as Comedy Central’s wherever it appears."

(-Motionographer)

My opinion? I like the new rebrand. There's some resistance to it, saying that it's bland and doesn't hold enough personality for Comedy Central. I agree with Suzanne Labarre in her FastCo. blog about the logo:

"One of the chief complaints about the new logo is that it’s too corporate and looks exactly like the copyright symbol. (It also looks a lot like the Copyleft logo.) Duh, that’s the point! The copyright is the ultimate emblem of the corporate world. Here, Comedy Central is literally turning it on its head. The joke is subtle but clever. You don’t need comic sans and a brick backdrop at the Ha Ha Club to say “funny.” The new logo brands Comedy Central as funny -- and subtly suggests that they've got a lock on laughs."

The new logo incorporates an underlying irony while giving the polished look of a successful company that will translate well in all forms of media. I like that the logo isn't as obnoxious and tacky as the old- besides, with something subtle, they are letting the comedy and the shows speak for themselves. Well done, Comedy Central, you have my applause.