Porto Rocha answers to the fandoms only in visual identity for Netflix

There are a lot of shows on Netflix. So when New York agency Porto Rocha began working on a visual identity for the streaming platform, the question became how to play with them. Just like any good homepage, shows like Bridgerton, Stranger Things, Squid Game, Wednesday and Emily in Paris all crop up in the project, but in the form of small easter eggs – with waffles, corgis and a severed hand secretly layered into 3D illustrations of keychains or hair clips.

The work is for Tudum, a fan event held by Netflix every year in São Paulo, Brazil, with the last event being their largest ever with 78 million livestream attendees. Porto Rocha came to work on the identity having built up an intricate understanding of Netflix’s visual persona over the years. The pair first began collaborating during the pandemic over a fun, printed Almanac for Tudum; Porto Rocha worked on a comedy festival for Netflix in LA next, eventually taking the reins of Tudum as a whole.

Maximalism and a ‘dialling up’ of content and imagery were two focal points for the Tudum identity. (Porto Rocha likes to use the analogy someone at Netflix shared once that Tudum is like the extra topping on a sundae – it needs to exude something ‘extra’.) The first port of call was the Tudum logo itself, which was bought into 3D and given dimensionality in flat and physical applications through techniques like a hot pink, fuzzy texture. The wider Tudum typographic language was similarly bold, referencing the lettering of Brazilian street posters.

Illustration provided space for Porto Rocha to explore the “fan culture” that surrounds Netflix. Instead of commissioning a single illustrator, Porto Rocha worked with a group of Brazilian artists – including Iryna Leblon, Natalia Agatte, Pedro Nekoi, Pedro Veneziano and Pepapuke – to depict scenes of the fans themselves, sporting keychains or merch, as well as spot illustrations referencing objects from various shows (those are the easter eggs we mentioned earlier).

“We curated illustrators with uniquely expressive signature styles but who shared a few things in common: a connection to pop culture and youth, vibrant colour usage, and a dynamic sense of dimension in their work,” says Felipe Rocha. “Some of them are long term collaborators, like Pedro Veneziano, others are new emerging talents who we discovered recently, like Iryna Leblon.”

Those illustrations come together in unexpected ways, with symbols from different shows weaved together in interesting combinations – a dolphin placed next to a bloody bread knife, and what have you. Further room for play was provided in the physical space, where compositions were scaled to “larger-than-life proportions” and fans could see their favourite shows brought to life away from the soft glow of the Netflix app.