Sky Sports has launched a new visual identity which is designed to move away from sports-specific sub-brands and attract new audiences.<\/p>\n
The new look was launched at the start of the football season this summer, and was also used for its recent Ryder Cup coverage. It will roll out across other sports, from Formula One and darts to cricket, boxing and tennis, over the next 12 months.<\/p>\n
\u201cSky Sports is a beast, so it\u2019s an ever-evolving piece of work,\u201d says Alex Haley, Sky\u2019s group creative director of brand design.<\/p>\n
Sky Sports last rebranded in 2017, when it shifted towards a channel architecture built around different sports, like Sky Sports Premier League and Sky Sports Cricket.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to create identities for each of those channels, so we had different colour palettes and we created new typefaces,\u201d explains Ceri Sampson, Sky\u2019s group executive creative director of brand and design.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were almost their own little sub-brands, but it almost worked too well, and the success of those genre channels was to the detriment of Sky Sports itself. We wanted to re-establish the main brand and put the love back into Sky Sports.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another element of the brief was to attract a broader audience, particularly the under-35 age group. Much has been made of sport having to adopt more of the design cues of the entertainment world, as consumption habits change and the importance of short social clips increases.<\/p>\n
But Haley says the Sky Sports team needed to balance that with what its channels do best.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is so much choice in sports now, and so many formats,\u201d he says. \u201cBut for us, live is still king. It\u2019s the centrepiece of the experience, but of course everything that wraps around live has become more relevant, to engage fans beyond the 90 minutes, or the in-ring action.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always want people to watch live, because that\u2019s the best and purest experience. But the way to get them there perhaps isn\u2019t as traditional as it was 15 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the Sky Sports team, the challenge was not just to create consistency across its different sports, formats and touchpoints, but also to create an experience worth buying.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnlike the BBC or ITV, we\u2019re selling a product,\u201d Haley says. \u201cSo the branding needs to help justify the amount people are spending.\u201d<\/p>\n
That, Sampson explains, helped develop the new brand positioning \u2013 \u201cWelcome to the show\u201d \u2013 which he says underscores the \u201cvalue Sky Sports adds.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSome broadcasters just rock up and point a few cameras at a sports event,\u201d he says. \u201cBut that\u2019s not us. It\u2019s always been about really premium additions, from the best commentators, to the best cameras, to the best brand and graphic design package that sits around any programme.\u201d<\/p>\n
This focus on presentation influenced the evolution of the Sky Sports logo. \u201cWe deconstructed it to create what we\u2019ve called the stage device, where the roundel becomes a vehicle to represent the stories we\u2019re telling,\u201d Haley says.<\/p>\n
The new Sky Sports visual identity, with the logo roundel used as a framing device<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve also removed the logo\u2019s glass sheen, which Sampson says had become \u201ca cold barrier working against our positioning of welcoming everybody.\u201d (The Sky master logo has also recently had its sheen removed).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe actual proportions and everything are the same, but the textures within have changed,\u201d Sampson says.<\/p>\n
This has opened up different and more interesting visual treatments. One of Sky\u2019s car parks in west London was wrapped with an image of a Formula One car speeding over the new logo.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has tire marks all over it, and that\u2019s something we wouldn\u2019t have been able to do before,\u201d Haley says. He says the team is relishing \u201cdialling up\u201d this more emotional, fan-friendly side of the brand alongside the \u201cpremium experience and innovation we\u2019re famous for.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the biggest parts of the new identity is a new typeface, Sky Sports Sans,<\/em> which comes in five weights and was developed with the F37 foundry.<\/a> This replaces the six sports-specific fonts created as part of the 2017 rebrand.<\/p>\n \u201cEach had its own tone and visual quirks, but they shared some key limitations \u2013 they were all-caps, only available in a single weight, and each was a modified version of an external typeface,\u201d F37\u2019s Rick Banks explains. \u201cThis created brand inconsistency and limited Sky\u2019s creative control.\u201d<\/p>\n Sampson says the new typeface is designed to be \u201cbold and iconic\u201d and creates consistency across on-screen graphics, digital and advertising, while retaining flexibility.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to be tied down to one execution of that typeface,\u201d he says. \u201cDifferent sports have different personalities, and even within sports, The Hundred is very different to test match cricket.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we want that font to flex, and things like the motion principles of how we animate it will change from sport to sport.\u201d<\/p>\n Banks says Sky Sports Sans<\/em> is built for \u201cwarmth, clarity and versatility\u201d with \u201cangular cuts, sharp terminals and pointed vertices\u201d referencing dynamism and energy.<\/p>\n And Haley says they were inspired too by magazine covers. \u201cWe wanted the brand to feel more editorial in its design, and the confidence of the font is very robust.\u201d<\/p>\n He says they paid particular attention to the numbers, because of the central role they play in sports coverage, from the constant on-screen presence of a football score to the celebratory moments of a six in cricket, or a 180 in darts.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a lot of frank conversations internally,\u201d Haley says. \u201cSome people were a bit nervous that we were pushing it too far.\u201d<\/p>\n To ensure every part of the brand expression is considered, Sky has some pretty specialist creative roles.<\/p>\n For example, Haley explains, its talent creative director, Francesca Gray-Walkinshaw, manages every aspect of how talent shows up on screen, \u201cfrom styling, to production, to training around how we express our brand values.\u201d<\/p>\n This matters, he says, because in a show like Super Sunday<\/em>, Sky\u2019s flagship football offering, around 50% of the transmission will be talent contextualising and discussing the action.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so from our point of view, having someone who is able to understand the personalities, the presentation, and what we want to achieve with the brand, is really interesting,\u201d Haley says.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s quite a unique part of what branding means in this space, beyond the typical stuff of identities and toolkits.\u201d<\/p>\n The new Sky Sports visual identity, featuring Sky Sports Sans
\nThe new Sky Sports visual identity, featuring Sky Sports Sans
\nThe new Sky Sports visual identity, featuring Sky Sports Sans
\nThe new Sky Sports visual identity
\nThe new Sky Sports visual identity
\nThe new Sky Sports visual identity<\/p>\n