A storied legacy

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Global branding
for 21CF

21st Century Fox is one of the most prominent media and entertainment companies in the world, spanning six continents and reaching more than 1.8 billion subscribers every day. With a portfolio including 20th Century Fox, FX, National Geographic and Hulu, 21CF is the home of some of the most storied brands and iconic characters in history. As a brand in its own right, 21CF had little more than a logo and basic color palette. Our task was to articulate the 21CF point of view and create an identity system to align the different properties and business units under a single idea.

Story sits squarely at the heart of the new brand. It’s an elemental component of everything from feature film to television, broadcast, VR, documentary and sports. We took inspiration from the mark itself, specifically the beacon. It illuminates, reveals, exposes the stories, people and characters behind shows, films and teams around the world. The result is a robust yet refined identity system that expresses the parent brand through the content, the writing, the artifacts of the stories themselves.

Interior Identity

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We had the opportunity to extend the brand expressions into physical space, specifically the top floors of the new 21st Century Fox headquarters in New York. We curated a selection of content from across the portfolio, around the globe and back through the rich history of the core brands. We created a series of 43 unique wall murals that each represent ‘story’ through a different lens.

A DNA sequence from National Geographic, the end credits from Cleopatra, a list of Itchy and Scratchy episode titles, script excerpts from an Indian soap opera and render code from Blue Sky Animation; the sources and formats reflect the diversity in the holdings, content and audiences of 21CF.

Gallery Wall

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We designed a massive custom modular display wall, which was built on site. It houses a rotating gallery of artifacts which we curated from 21CF’s storied past. This main gallery wall is the central focal point for the 40,000 sq. ft. executive floor.

Gallery and display case design: Corey Yurkovich - Office CY
Gallery Photo: © Chris Leonard, courtesy of Gensler.

Additional custom display cases were built to integrate seamlessly with the Vitra storage system used throughout the office. We worked with archivists around the world to procure, transport and install these ‘story artifacts’ across 3 floor plates. These objects ranged from a variety of iconic props from familiar movies and TV shows, to historic sports memorabilia; from Fox, Star and Sky Sports. Darth Vader's helmet, Tyler Durden’s leather jacket, to a ball from Super Bowl XLIX, to a Tour De France yellow jersey, the artifacts span a range of 80 years.

Hundreds of artifacts, spanning 80 years of storytelling in cinema, broadcast and sports.

Identity

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We also generated a whole identity suite which ranges from business cards, to annual reports, content reels and motion toolkits along with the website and social channels. We even named all the conference rooms to correspond with the murals inside.