Treadingnew channels
Penguin is a well-known name – many people think of the legendary publishing house to which we owe most of the English-language books on our shelves. But Penguin is more, because it also stands for Penguin Random House (part of the Bertelsmann Group), one of the largest publishing houses in the world. The German subsidiary alone owns over 40 publishing houses, including such famous names as Heyne, Goldmann and Luchterhand.
Does such a strong and established company even need support from KMS? Very much so. What it was all about was to give the umbrella brand, which had previously only communicated at B2B level, a B2C presence and to design it in a contemporary and attractive way for a broad audience on the website and social media channels.
As a first step, we advised our client on the choice of the name »Penguin« for the B2C sector, while the B2B brand remained Penguin Random House; this also included differentiation strategies regarding Penguin Verlag, which continues to communicate autonomously within the group.
In terms of design, we utilised the charisma of the Penguin icon and developed a generative system for visuals by zooming in on the contours of the emblematic penguin figure (and thus into the DNA of the brand). Added to this was a colour concept that works with tone-on-tone gradations within a defined palette and a typographic modernisation based on the existing brand fonts.
In addition to the main account, which reflects the basic concept, we created the design for the ›New Adults‹ channel with a focus on romance novels.
Following the very streamlined branding process, we developed detailed concepts for the design of themed social media channels. In addition to the main account, which reflects the basic concept, we created the design for the »New Adults« channel with a focus on romance novels, which is particularly well suited to its bright colours and gradient motif. In the children’s book area, we relied on bold colours and target group-appropriate background drawings.
It is important that the different, differentiated channels together create a coherent appearance that gives the brand an attractive, recognisable face for a diversified reading audience.
In the children’s book area, we relied on bold colours and target group-appropriate background drawings.
Penguin
Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe GmbH is a company of the media group Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA. Penguin Random House employs around 950 people at its sites in Munich (headquarters) and Gütersloh (Gütersloh publishing house). The more than 40 book publishers in Germany's largest trade book publishing group publish up to 2,500 books a year in the fields of fiction, children's and young adult books, non-fiction, art books and how-to books in hardcover, paperback, e-book and audiobook formats.
