Everyone knows the ESPN logo: Bright red color, slightly angled uppercase letters, and a horizontal line cutting through the middle.<\/p>\n
But the legacy sports media company has never actually had official brand identity guidelines down on paper\u2014until now.<\/p>\n
After several months of work, the ESPN Creative Studio team officially introduced its identity framework, which includes a custom typeface, the exact degree angle of the \u201cE,\u201d and an officially authorized shade of red, ahead of the six-month anniversary of ESPN\u2019s newest direct-to-consumer service last month.<\/p>\n
Chin Wang, VP of design, creative systems, and strategy at ESPN Creative Studio, said the DTC platform roll-out was the moment that execs realized the brand could benefit from more officially cemented design principles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe realized the ESPN brand did not have a clear definition,\u201d Wang told Marketing Brew. \u201cWhen you thought about ESPN, you thought about the logo, and then you thought about the color red, and there was nothing else to really hang our hat on to create any sort of cohesive, identifiable design system.\u201d<\/p>\n
As ESPN gears up for its first Super Bowl broadcast next year, the guidelines for its brand identity are meant to be used internally across the many divisions of the Walt Disney Company, on its social and digital platforms, at live events, and by its brand and content partners, to help define the brand even better and in more ways.<\/p>\n