ADC Awards
The ADC Annual Awards is the oldest continuously running industry award show in the world. Now in its incredible 102nd year, these awards celebrate the very best in advertising, digital media, graphic and publication design, packaging and product design, motion, experiential and spatial design, photography, illustration and fashion design all with a focus on artistry and craftsmanship.
Category
Rebranding
Annual ID
ADC102_BCD021B
About the Work
CHALLENGE
Help a new generation viewers discover a new generation of storytellers
STORY
Streaming content is saturated with endless, algorithm-driven choices. As a result, TV networks stick to known formulas to win over the code. Few take risks on emerging talent or original series.
But Freeform, a division of Disney, makes its name by backing young adult stories that buck tropes and curb conventions. They give narratives that are usually on the periphery a platform.
Last year, Freeform completed their streaming-first transition–transforming their programming in the process and challenging even more industry conventions. Their purpose, story and brand voice needed to transform, too.
We worked with Freeform to reposition them from channel to creator. From “on Freeform” to “Made by Freeform.” Together, we reevaluated their viewers as not an age-group, but a stage. Not an audience, but a community. Freeform viewers aren’t coming-of-age, but in a constant state of becoming—and want shows that help them expand their world, not escape from it.
This gave Freeform a new core promise: To push new perspectives. With it, they could articulate what made Freeform different—deep stories told from emerging perspectives that help people shape their place in the world.
Like any great story—Freeform twists and turns. Always in a state of becoming, like their audience. With limitless capacity to reinvent itself through color, shape and movement.
When Freeform speaks, it’s through an iconic typeface that never resolves and is always being turned on its head. Taking the original cut of Helvetica, Neue Haas Grotesk (designed in 1957-1961 by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffman), we transformed it with Monotype. Giving Freeform a voice that invites you to look again and again.
Freeform is now a beacon for the creative adventurousness of the voices that make it up. And the new audience that streams it.
2023 Awards
Total Points: 9
Bronze Cube
Credits
Design Firm
COLLINS / New York
Creative Director
Louis Mikolay
Designer
Yeun Kim
Motion Designer
Eric Park
Darius Wang
Strategist
Meg Farmer
Design Director
Frank Lionetti
Dante Carlos
Senior Copywriter
Madeleine Carrucan
Senior Designer
Emily Sneddon
Strategy Director
Dash Alison
Chief strategy Officer
Taamrat Amaize
General Manager, SF
Michael Di Leo
Motion Design Director
Tomas Markevicius
Program Director
Kelly Kraft
Strategic Initiatives Manager
Alex Athanasiou
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