Netflix: Branding
Role: Art Director + Designer
Studio: Gretel
With a recently redesigned logotype, expanding slate of Originals and a global expansion well underway, the Netflix Global Brand Team needed an identity system to unify the brand across all markets, platforms and touch points. It had to be visually striking, adapt to any format and hold up to interpretation by agencies and vendors around the globe.
The Solution: The Stack.
A visual metaphor and an identity system in one. It’s an endless, living catalog of Netflix shows and movies. The Stack also implies two ideas at the heart of the service: selection and curation. It’s distinctive, clear, infinitely variable and easy-to-use. It works in motion, print, digital and out-of-home. It’s just as effective in Times Square as in PowerPoint. It connects everything the brand touches, internally and externally. Plus, brand ‘volume’ can easily be turned up and down as needed.
The stack is built of uniformly sized cards. Cards can contain almost anything.
The Stack is Simple
Volume can be dialed up or down as-needed.
The Stack is Flexible
Whether it’s in motion or static, the catalog feels infinite, expansive. Always something more to see.
The Stack is Endless
In every region, hundreds of ads, posters, banner ads, tv spots, billboards and trailers are produced by a host of different agencies every quarter. Maintaining unity and consistency across all of them meant establishing a clear, flexible system that relies on guiding principles rather than comprehensive rules and regulations.
The Global Rollout
Building a Brand Hub
The brand guide gives partners all over the world a central hub for voice and style guidelines, examples and digital assets. It’s comprehensive, but succinct. The focus is on showing examples rather than running down the rules. Users can get a quick-view at a glance or drill deeper for specifics.
Netflix is a living brand, constantly evolving. So are the guidelines. The brand team regularly curates a selection of the best work across different platforms and feeds those dynamically into the brand guide. Partners see their best work reflected back at them and the brand stays relevant and current.
Credits
Executive Creative Director: Greg Hahn
Creative Director: Ryan Moore
Head of Production: Dina Chang
Art Director: Dylan Mulvaney
Designers: Dylan Mulvaney, Ryan Moore, Adam Wentworth
Animators: Chris Linea, Eric Konon, AJ Kolb, Lu Liu, Dorian West, Brandon Kennedy