Paramount Global is officially merging with production company Skydance. In its first investor meeting since announcing the merger, the company unveiled a new logo as part of its investor presentation. It looks more like a private equity firm than an entertainment company.
The new logo uses Paramount’s familiar mountain motif and halo of stars, but replaces the media company’s wordmark with a new serif version that is gently curving and has a curve underneath it. It appears to have the same font and layout as the Skydance logo.
Traditional capital letters, serifs and thin strokes combine with a royal blue background to create a wordmark that is more reminiscent of management consulting and investment firms like McKinsey or Citadel than other entertainment companies and streaming services that primarily use script or sans serif type.
With that in mind, a new logo after the merger would be a great fit if the goal is internal corporate synergy. Perhaps it is, since the logo is used in documents that talk about strengthening the balance sheet, growth, etc… free cash flow and consolidating important intellectual property. But it also robs Paramount of its logo of its personality. The end result is a boring logo more fitting for a home video brand than one of the most prestigious media companies in the world.
110 Years of Logo History
Paramount has used its mountain logo since 1914, and it has become one of the most recognizable brands in the entertainment business as the company expanded into a media giant that owns properties such as CBS, MTV, and Nickelodeon. The company says it has a 96% popularity rating in the United States. The logo is an integral part of the company’s near-global brand name, and parent company National Amusements kept the logo even into the streaming era.
When Paramount launched its Paramount+ streaming service in 2021, it turned to Loyalkaspar, a branding and marketing agency that had worked on brand identities for other streamers, including Disney+ and Peacock. The designers kept Paramount’s mountains, stars and wordmark for their streaming service’s branding, but adjusted the slant of the letters and the shadow of the mountains, and lightened the blue. Loyalkaspar confirmed to Fast Company that they didn’t design the logo unveiled Tuesday.
Design Side Effects of Business Consolidation
Standardization of media logos may be the way companies move forward in an age of consolidation (see Marvel Entertainment’s synergistic branding), but it’s also possible that Paramount’s new logo, Skydance, is only temporary. Media conglomerate mergers are worth billions of dollars, but a new visual identity isn’t always the biggest concern when two companies become one. A representative for Skydance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
For example, when Warner Bros. and Discovery merged in 2021, the new company did away with Warner Bros.’ iconic “WB” sign, which had been updated by Pentagram just two years earlier, and unveiled a new shared logo. This logo will remain in place until 2023, after which the company will undergo a complete rebranding and signage redesign from Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv.
In Paramount’s case, the merged logo combines two logos without any visual recognition that one is much more recognizable than the other. It also proves how important the various parts of the classic Paramount logo are together. The mountain, the stars, and the letters alone aren’t even half as recognizable as they are when combined.