Czech Radio introduces new corporate identity
After 17 years, Czech Radio has changed its corporate identity. For the first time in history, Czech Radio has changed and unified the graphic form of all its brand labels in order to create a uniform visual style of this public service station. New logos have been designed for all nationwide, special and regional Czech Radio stations, as well as ensembles, competitions and other projects offered to the general public by Czech Radio.
“After nearly twenty years during which Czech Radio gradually launched new stations and introduced more and more new projects, the change in our corporate identity was inevitable. We have been considering such a change for several years. I believe that the new logotype will only strengthen the position of Czech Radio as a modern public service medium, and I hope that it will appeal to our listeners and contribute to better identification of the individual stations, ensembles as well as individual projects,” said Peter Duhan, Director General of Czech Radio.
The new set of logotypes comes from Studio Marvil whose logo design won the contract for the creation of Czech Radio’s new corporate identity. It was announced by Czech Radio in April of last year. “It was a great challenge to design the logotype for such a prestigious institution as Czech Radio. We are very happy that our design has been chosen. We believe that Czech Radio will be using our logo for at least the next 17 years,” said Pavel Zelenka, Creative Director at Studio Marvil.
The new logotype is dominated by the large letter “R”. “R” stands for radio, the Radiožurnál station and also regional broadcasting. “The aim was to create a powerful logo that would become visually synonymous with Czech Radio. Formally minimalistic, the almost abstract design of the logo guarantees its universal applicability in all sizes and colour versions, at the same time providing it with a rather unique and easily remembered appearance,” explains Pavel Zelenka. The symbolic form of the letter “R” is accompanied by an open typographic system describing the methodology of the creation of logotypes. Thus a firm visual frame is created thanks to which it is possible to identify the affiliation of each individual station or organisational component within Czech Radio as its parent institution. Blue has been chosen as the basic corporate colour.
Studio Marvil will also produce complete graphic manuals for the entire portfolio of brand labels and logos for Czech Radio. These will contain the shape characteristics of logotypes, principles of their use, basic colour scheme, typography and methods of application and will be present on company printed materials, digital templates, company cars, and on the labelling of technical equipment or buildings. The final price of the contract is CZK 2.2 million. The results of the contract will be available to the public as of 1 April 2013 at the headquarters of Czech Radio, Vinohradská 12, Prague 2.
The existing logo of Czech Radio has been used since 1996. It was designed by the agency Men on The Moon and won the Logo of the Year Award in 1997. Since 2000, there have been several changes to the logotypes of Czech Radio stations (for instance, regional stations changed their logos in 2001 and the logo of Radiožurnál changed in 2001 and subsequently in 2009). Logos were also created for newly emerging stations, such as ČRo Region in 2002 or four special stations at the time of the launch of digital broadcasting in 2005 (ČRo Rádio Česko, ČRo Radio Wave, ČRo D-dur, ČRo Leonardo), as well as for ensembles and competitions (Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Big Band ČRo, Prix Bohemia Radio, Concerto Bohemia, Concertino Praga, etc.). These modifications were performed in cooperation with various graphic studios. All logotypes featured the basic elements of Czech Radio’s corporate design.
Studio Marvil (founded in 1995) is one of the most prominent Czech graphic studios. In addition to logotypes and visual styles for major companies, it also produces designs for books and periodicals and publishes the professional magazine TYPO. The studio’s most significant projects include the logotype and visual style for ČEZ Group, Lesy ČR and Prague Stock Exchange. It has also cooperated with major Czech producers, such as the glassworks Bohemia Machine, the producer of lighting fixtures Brokis and the furniture producer TON. Last year the studio won a contract for the new destination logo of the Czech Republic. In the past, Marvil’s design work won numerous awards, such as the Most Beautiful Book of the Year or the Zlatý Středník (Golden Semicolon) Award, as well as the prominent international Red Dot Design Award for the graphic design of TYPO magazine in 2010.
The new corporate identity will be adopted from 1 March of this year; all new logotypes will be introduced gradually in the coming months.
For more information, please go to zpravy.rozhlas.cz.
A video recording of the press conference and other materials will be available at www.youtube.com/user/ceskyrozhlas.
MgA. Jakub Čížek
Communications and External Relations Director
Czech Radio
Phone: +420 221 551 310