Frieze undergoes a rebrand by Pentagram, featuring a new visual identity and custom typeface

In celebration of its 30th anniversary, Frieze’s creative director David Lane worked with Pentagram to devise a consistent and recognisable identity across the brand.

Date
5 February 2021

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In celebration of its 30th anniversary, Frieze has revealed a rebrand, consisting of a new visual identity designed by Pentagram, and a custom typeface designed with typographer Luke Prowse.

Founded in 1991, the art organisation and platform consists of frieze, Frieze Week and Frieze Masters Magazine, three publications that sit alongside leading international art fairs in London, New York and Los Angeles. Expanding into the digital realm, a number of different identities have emerged over time through a variety of sub-brands. As such, Frieze’s creative director David Lane and the wider team brought Pentagram onboard to devise a consistent and recognisable identity.

Luke and Jody Hudson-Powell, along with their Pentagram team, analysed the existing brand architecture to understand what to refresh and what to scrap. The rebrand needed a strong and identifiable rethink, without loosing its balance and differentiation between the sub-brands. As such, the team created a unified identity that’s flexible and easily incorporated into the Frieze family – while still adhering to its audience of collectors, gallerists and art enthusiasts.

The identity features an update to the frieze magazine masthead – originally created by Tom Gidley and redesigned by Paul Barnes – with its own typeface that can be used across the board. The typeface, designed with Luke Prowse, comprises four weights, curved brackets, slab serifs and narrow uppercase characters unique to the masthead’s design language. Inspired by the typewriter and monospace features found in the existing masthead, Pentagram expanded the typographic system and created some separation between the updated masthead and the original wordmark.

Pentagram: Frieze (Copyright © Pentagram, 2021)

Presented in black and white, the brand design system is distinctive but doesn’t take attention away from the content or the layouts. The colours and textures of the editorial content continue to play a key role in the aesthetic, with the art taking centre stage.

Following the redesign, Frieze’s creative director David Lane has produced a series of campaigns that will mark the organisation’s key milestones throughout 2021. Each campaign is in collaboration with an artist, producing visual content and evolving with the particular event at hand. Zach Lieberman, an American new-media artist and designer known for his use of creative coding, has created a series of animations to coincide with the 30th anniversary. Additionally, Chris Rhodes has produced a campaign shoot for Frieze New York.

The new identity system can be seen across both the physical and digital spheres, and at a range of sizes, including art fair signage and programmes, magazine covers, advertising in print, digital and physical locations, website navigation UX design, right down to social media.

GalleryPentagram: Frieze (Copyright © Pentagram, 2021)

Pentagram: Frieze (Copyright © Pentagram, 2021)

Pentagram: Frieze (Copyright © Pentagram, 2021)

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Pentagram: Frieze (Copyright © Pentagram, 2021)

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About the Author

Ayla Angelos

Ayla is a London-based freelance writer, editor and consultant specialising in art, photography, design and culture. After joining It’s Nice That in 2017 as editorial assistant, she was interim online editor in 2022/2023 and continues to work with us on a freelance basis. She has written for i-D, Dazed, AnOther, WePresent, Port, Elephant and more, and she is also the managing editor of design magazine Anima. 

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