The plenty stated radio was a lifeless media. But, like print, it’s prevailed by the occasions and the ever-evolving expertise. The unbiased technique, design, and communications firm COLLINS highlights the medium’s endurance with their model identification design for Bay Space radio station KALW.
The native radio station wanted a brand new system for its eightieth anniversary that encapsulated its progressive ethos and wealthy previous. The visuals are vivid, counting on daring, summary typography, good colours, and grid-inspired layouts. The inspiration for the design is pulled from the design kinds of jazz posters from the ’50s and ’60s, a concurrently assertive and uncomplicated aesthetic. Whereas radio stations’ branding usually feels antiquated, KALW redefines what’s attainable within the house.
With the countless variety of playlists, podcasts and reside streams we feature round in our pockets, the thought of listening to a “radio station” feels antiquated. However many people make an exception for our native public radio station, as a result of they seize what can’t be recreated by a line of code—the heart beat of the neighborhood we reside in. As a substitute of artifacts of the previous, our public radio stations are often the primary to grasp—and categorical—what it means to reside in our metropolis at any second.
For the previous 80 years, KALW has been that radio station for the Bay Space—in addition to a pioneer for a lot of public radio stations across the nation. They had been the primary FM station west of the Mississippi; the primary FM broadcast coaching program within the nation; one of many first to coach girls in radio broadcasting throughout World Conflict II; and one of many first to carry NPR and BBC World Information to the west coast. Fiercely devoted to all 9 Bay Space counties it serves, KALW remains to be on the forefront of what a public radio station might be—producing native speak, information and music exhibits which can be socially-minded, solutions-oriented and community-focused.
THE CHALLENGE
KALW got here to us for a brand new identification to rejoice their eightieth anniversary and propel them into their subsequent 80 years. Nonetheless, their viewers’s listening habits had modified 180º since they went on the air in 1941. Now, everybody—particularly folks as tech savvy as these within the Bay Space—can hearken to anybody and something from anyplace on the planet.
It turned clear that we wanted to create greater than only a new brand for the station—we needed to discover a visible language and voice that gave a neighborhood, terrestrial, public radio station with a small funds a strategy to stand out and remind their neighborhood why they matter.
THE SOLUTION
We’re no strangers to KALW—we’ve had a studio in San Francisco for quite a lot of years. We all know first-hand the one factor they’ve that AI-driven algorithms and world podcast celebrities don’t is a historical past, data, and persona that distinctly displays the Bay Space. They’ve at all times captured the variety and forward-looking ethos of the area by preserving their ears to the streets they serve.
A daring voice travels far, so we wished a logo that’s as highly effective as KALW’s and expresses the colourful future they need to construct with their neighborhood. The star created between the “okay” and “a” represents the epiphany of a brand new thought in addition to the intersection of individuals the place these concepts occur.
We additionally wished a brand that would act as the principle supply of images in KALW’s communications. This may enable their model identification to be the hero, and assist them stretch their advertising funds—which is a giant deal for a neighborhood public radio station.
Counting on sort, shade and the summary letterforms of the brand known as to thoughts the arresting simplicity of jazz and classical live performance posters from the Nineteen Fifties and Sixties. Considering of those functions and our use-cases led us to a vivid shade palette to attract folks’s consideration, a clear show typeface to counterbalance the brand, and a tone of voice that conveys a way of KALW’s progressive perspective.
Working intently with KALW’s group, we had been in a position to craft an identification and system that would develop with them as they proceed to reimagine and redefine what being a neighborhood radio station means.
