Design System

The challenge

Design a new series for the HBR Press brand. When designing a new series, you must establish a new brand look within a pre-existing brand look while giving it a new distinct look while also distinguishing it from a long line of other series books. Easy, right? Considerations include long titles, short titles, and very similar topics. There are sometimes box sets, toolkits, video explainers, and other unique packaging considerations.

The method

The HBR Press brand is long established. All new series must fit the parameters of the beloved brand. So how do you respect that look while differentiating? Here, I knew I had to enlarge the HBR logo.

The logo does the heavy lifting. It’s not just a mark. It’s often incorporated into a series design quite closely. And it announces the import, and the strong brand presenting the book to the market. We allow the logo to live in a variety of locations. Sometimes it sits in the top left corner, sometimes lower right. Its largesse needed to be able to live in any of these spots. Using a bright, bold palette to anchor it within our branded lines, I knocked out the logo and incorporated the tagline into so that it made a cohesive unit. Because these books are meant to be more current and topical than our more evergreen topics, I used a background that invoked technology.

The result

A new series that quickly established itself in the marketplace. And a design system that allowed us to publish quick-to-market books about the coronavirus.

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Contact me at stephanibf@gmail.com