What started out as a website redesign quickly became an entire rebranding job for Michigan Capitol Confidential (CapCon), a news source with a free-market perspective. I had the rare opportunity of having nearly complete freedom to rebrand and execute the redesign of the logo, website and newspaper.
The original branding featured several logos and icons that could be combined or used separately if needed. The classic slab serif font, Rockwell, was used throughout as well as the bold yellow+black combination.
Original brand elements:
The Rebrand
To start, I condensed the three original elements into one logo: the capitol icon, the slab serif and the brand name. Depending on where the new logo is used, it has the flexibility to include expand and include CapCon's tagline or condense to a simple icon.
The color palette was also updated. The new yellow is brighter and easier to read on white backgrounds. Additionally, the palette was expanded to include several more colors identifying different types of articles as a News Story, Editorial, Commentary or Analysis. Unique icons were developed to help differentiate the articles as well.
This helped immensely on the website by allowing all of the article types to be displayed in a one main feed, rather than having to divide the homepage into 3 columns like before.
Last but not least, the newspaper itself. Because the original branding elements had been condensed into one logo, the heading on the front page could now feature more visuals. Instead of being greeted by a wall of text, photographs and illustrations welcome the reader in.
