Brand/Rebrand: Nicktoons

Brand/Rebrand: Nicktoons
06.18.2014
What does it look like inside the head of a nine-year-old boy?
That's the question Nicktoons pondered as it delved into its latest rebrand,
which emerged in May. The answer looks something like this:
"[Nicktoons] had two types of programming on our air," said Brian Hoffman, VP
of creative strategy for Nickelodeon Niche Nets, in a chat with Brief about
developing the rebrand. "Funny programming and action programming. Our
goal was to reinforce those strengths with a new brand identity that really
boosted the action alongside the humor."
That seemingly simply objective in no way hints at the explosive (often quite
literally) material depicted in the video above. But Hoffman's team had only just
begun and proceeded to leverage it, for the ensuing brief, into a much more
colorful and vibrant positioning:
"Action with a comic boom, laser-focused on boys," said Hoffman.
As the project moved forward, creative collective Sibling Rivalry won the pitch to
design the rebrand, and was handed that stirring, oddly poetic verbiage to work
with. To aide in their mission, Nicktoons had a secret weapon up its sleeve.
"[Nickelodeon SVP of brand design] Matthew Duntemann had this amazing idea
of teaming [Sibling Rivalry] up with Justin Harder," said Hoffman.
Harder is a print designer turned motion graphics wunderkind whose
rotoscoped animation, high-contrast color palette and retro aesthetic resulted in
some of the most iconic commercials, music videos and on-air design of the late
'90s and 2000s. In an interview with Brief last year, he mentioned that he had
been working on the Nicktoons rebrand, expressing excitement at "doing
hand-drawn, wacky, wild, 2D stuff again."
His excitement was justified. The on-air elements that emerged from the
collaboration of Harder and Sibling Rivalry are fascinatingly frenetic and never
predictable, a mesmerizing mishmash of paper cutouts, origami, hand-drawn
illustrations, neon characters and creepy claymation. A quirky sound design
from audio post studio HOBO rounds out the lo-fi effect with '80s and '90s video
game noises and an overall aesthetic inspired by mashup videos found on Vine,
YouTube and Instagram. The sum of these parts is indeed what one might
imagine would be going on inside the brain of a nine-year-old boy.
"It was a pretty amazing partnership that really brought the rebrand to life" said
Hoffman of their joint effort, which also featured "character work" on the
Nicktoons logo. Now, when the logo resolves on various on-air promos, the
"toons" part plays off whatever show was being promoted. So a spot promoting
"SpongeBob SquarePants," explained Hoffman, "might have SpongeBob's hand
coming up with his thumb up. It gives the logo some characterization and
speaks to the overall rebrand… making all the characters on Nicktoons
ownable to us."
In conjunction with all the impressive graphics additions, Hoffman said that "the
other part of it that came together is the editorial voice, which is very different
than it was in the 2009 rebrand." Headed up by Nickelodeon creative director
Lisandro Perez-Rey, the newer, edgier voice of the network continues to fulfill
the objective of "combining humor and action in a more meaningful way" with
promos like this high-octane yet dryly hilarious "Get Your Nicktoons On" spot:
"Lisandro did an amazing job of figuring out what that new voice was going to
be," Hoffman. "It really communicates the tone and adds a layer of wit and
humor and attitude to it… Our goal every day is to preserve our boy audience
and deliver them more of what they love about us, and I think the action plus the
humor really delivers on that."