Format Identity - A design refresh for a digital product in constant transformation
Format is an online portfolio platform allowing the user control over the look, feel, and functionality of a web-based space. The community that has developed around the Format platform has in large part had a profound effect upon the aesthetic of the brand, itself becoming the personality and visual identity built around the ingenuity and craft of the creative class. As the Format platform provides customization and the ability to continually adapt an online portfolio, we thought that injecting this kind of adaptation into an identity system would communicate the values and innovation of the product, the teams who develop it, and the community who have adopted it into their creative practice.
A typeface selected by the Format team served as a starting point for the word mark. The letterforms have been customized and redrawn in order to better align to the pixel grid and to craft a customized, bespoke brand identifier. Various “break points” have been designed into the letters one grid unit below the x-height that serve as binary areas that appear as solid in certain instances, and that disappear in others. Working with the Format team to develop a systematic structure for the wordmark and its integration into motion-based treatments became a wonderful challenge for applying the custom type into a larger visual language. Flux and change within the context of a highly defined grid system served as a guide for design application.
Colour systems have been retained from earlier iterations of the identity as a means of capitalizing on brand recognition and market share. A series of secondary colours have been introduced as a means of widening the palette to allow the identity more room to grow, and as such will provide the wordmark ample opportunity to function as a white graphic knocked out from coloured contexts. This new design fulfills the design agenda effectively as a transitional mark operating between a lengthening legacy and a newly-expanding visual language. For a product in continual change, the systematic approach is both exciting and innovative for the product category.
