Comedy Central Relaunch
When the Comedy Central network underwent a brand makeover, I was responsible for translating that look and feel to a redesigned homepage. Following the homepage, the redesign was iterated out through mobile web and apps. Later, I spearheaded a brand realignment across four major verticals that fell under the Comedy Central brand umbrella. Throughout the process, I led a collaborative team of in-house designers, and made presentations to executives and other senior stakeholders, translating their feedback in to results.
Homepage
The network brand makeover had a very two-dimensional look, with a well defined color palate. On-air titles were now simple and spare, with a very specific feeling to the animation. All of this lent itself very well to a reimagined homepage. The previous homepage was dense with data, and the design was not optimal. There were a few factors which inhibited the redesigned homepage from fully embracing the new aesthetic. Contractual obligations limited the workable space; a full-width experience wouldn’t be possible. Certain ad slots needed to remain in place. The font faces used in the network rebrand were not yet available to be supported on the web from their foundries. Ultimately, creative use of CSS allowed standard web-safe fonts to stand in handsomely for the more complex typography of the network rebrand. An innovative carrousel made impactful use of a limited footprint. The network website felt fresh again.
Carrousel
A pre-defined footprint limited the scale of the carrousel, but the vision for it called for something with impact nonetheless. Earlier explorations satisfied a desire to see a lot of motion. A more constrained version introduced video and a crd stack format that meshed nicely with the new brand principles. Because there was ongoing debate among stakeholders about whether or not to include video, how long the video should be, should it include audio, etc, I built a prototype in Flash exclusively for the purpose of testing and refining that experience.Sprite Replacement
The scope of the project only called for the redesign of the homepage, so every other page of the site would be left with mismatched, outdated branding. With no front-end tech resources available, I pushed for a solution in which only image sprites and design production templates would be updated. As a result, the entire network website was brought up to date and in to the new brand all at once. Pictured: the earlier homepage alongside how it would have looked with the image overhaul.
Brand Alignment
Once the network rebrand was complete, attention turned to other network digital properties. Those properties, including Jokes.com, Comedy Central Insider, Comedy Central Standup, and CC:Studios, had either not yet launched, or had a long been held as a separate and distinct brand unto themselves. I led an initiative to bring those properties back under the parent brand umbrella through a design which allowed for consistency and uniformity while maintaining unique personality.
Iterations
The network rebrand would later be rolled out on additional platforms. Two early examples which I was responsible for were the CC:On-Air app (a precursor to the network watch app) and the CC:Stand-Up app, a discovery app for a vast trove of Comedy Central Stand-Up videos from top comedians.