Custom
Typeface

Returning to our long-term creative collaborators and friends, Luke and Jody, we partnered with Pentagram for the update of Channel 4’s iconic and much-loved brand.

Creating an entirely original masterbrand that brings all of Channel 4 together for the first time, Pentagram’s rebrand united all of the channel brands, content and streaming services under one roof. The principles-based brand system embraced Channel 4’s inherent rebellious and unapologetic creativity, balancing the need for cohesion and consistency. To this end, the updated Channel 4 typeface plays a central role by carrying the brand spirit through all channels and media.

A reworking of our original font developed some ten years prior, the rebrand’s typographic update brought not only drawing and spacing improvements but new styles, an expanded character set and a collection of tailor-made pictograms called ‘4mojis’. The type family’s new condensed and expanded styles additionally helped carry the plural and eclectic voices of Channel 4 across the wide breadth of the brand’s applications, allowing more diversity in the typographic palette.

With the rebrand building upon the same framework a decade after its debut, Channel 4’s type family truly is a lesson in the power of consistency and economy and a reminder of the influence of typography in long-term recognition.

Custom Typeface
Year: 2023
Client: Channel 4

Agency: Pentagram
Team: NaN (Luke Prowse, Fátima Lazaro, Florian Runge), Pentagram (Luke Powell, Jody Hudson-Powell, Naresh Ramchandani, Nav Bhatia, Jack Llewellyn, Ashley Johnson, Luis Gutiérrez, Alice Sherwin, Hazal Ozkaya, Isla Wickham, Kate Heller, Robyn Cusworth, Zoë Gibson Quirk)