Freedom

Brand design, brand experience, brand transformation.

01Overview

Freedom

begins in your head.

In a confusingly complex world dominated by shouty opinion leaders and fake news, nothing is more important than guidance and the courage to make up your own mind. Guided by the mission to uphold democracy with which the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has shaped Germany’s journalistic landscape for the past 70 years, this publishing house with its rich tradition is now moving into the future – with a sophisticated portfolio of digital and print newspapers, new magazines, news portals, and services.

The clear positioning of the Frankfurter Allgemeine is what underpins its new brand identity and a brand experience that looks to the future:

Because news is not a commodity.

Taking this idea as our starting point, we developed the new brand design and brand experience of a strong publishing brand that reflects the mission of its editorial team and the lives of its readers: More than any other German media brand, the Frankfurter Allgemeine stands for a plurality of opinions, in-depth expertise, and the quality of its objective, level-headed analyses:

Freedom begins in your head.

02Transformation

Time for

change.

...from the icon of journalism to an iconic brand and an immersive brand experience. An inspiring spatial installation, improvised playfully in an empty wing of the publishing house’s main building, became the nucleus of this change. Inside this new room, christened “FreiRaum 490,” we created a participatory, hands-on workshop format that brings the Frankfurter Allgemeine brand to life. After all, change requires everyone to pull together.

A space for free thinking. The workshop for crafting the future – in small teams. Collaborative. Vibrant.

03Design

Freedom

begins with F.

The letter “F” is to become the brand icon and an expression of its liberal stance: self-conscious, unique, prominent, with rough edges. We reworked the Frankfurter Allgemeine logo – sensitively, yet extensively – into a strong umbrella brand and put it at the heart of a clearly structured, forward-looking brand family to form the basis for a distinct, high-quality brand identity with its roots firmly in the realities of everyday life.

With a powerful brand color and striking typography. With a clear stylistic idiom and new imagery that reflects the world we live in. We developed a simple principle applied flexibly across all media and formats:

Modular design – open to a wide variety of future applications and areas of use.

Within six months, the new brand identity had produced numerous prototypes and projects. The new brand design identity was unveiled to the general public at the first F.A.Z. Congress, and the new umbrella brand campaign was launched at the same time:

With clear messages. With values. With a distinct stance.