5 Questions for… CNBC’s Creative Lead on the New Logo Design

CNBC has a brand new look, and now we all know the reasoning behind it.On Saturday, December 13, CNBC—like its sister cable information channel MS NOW—dropped the Peacock branding from its brand as a part of the continued separation from the NBCUniversal Information Group.Instead, the community debuted a refreshed brand, described as “a extra fashionable look that simplifies the design whereas holding its id acquainted and timeless.”Designed in-house by one of many community’s senior designers, the brand new brand incorporates an arrow image acquainted to common viewers, which the community makes use of in its on-air graphic bundle to point optimistic or damaging motion within the enterprise market.Robert Poulton, CNBC’s head of inventive, spoke with TVNewser concerning the brand refresh for our remaining 5 Questions For… sequence for 2025. Poulton famous that, all through the design course of, they have been dedicated to defending CNBC’s phrase mark fairness, “whose readability and recognition have lengthy anchored our id.” TVNewser: What was the thought course of behind the brand new design?Poulton: Shifting away from the NBC Peacock, an icon embedded within the community’s visible id for many years, required us to assume boldly about how CNBC reveals up on this planet. With out that acquainted image, the design course of grew to become an exploration of what visible cues might symbolize CNBC by itself phrases: one thing fashionable, purposeful, and rooted within the model’s authority in enterprise information.We got down to create a brand that modernizes CNBC whereas preserving the legacy that has outlined the community for greater than three a long time. Our exploration coated a variety of concepts—symbols of ambition, upward momentum, world perspective, mascots, navigation, and monetary motion—as we looked for essentially the most genuine expression of who we’re and what we stand for. By way of that course of, we remained dedicated to defending the fairness of the CNBC phrase mark, whose readability and recognition have lengthy anchored our id. We additionally wished an emblem that signaled progress and function whereas becoming seamlessly into our community’s visible language. The result’s a refined phrase mark paired with the brand new Tick Marker, an upward-driven type constructed from the sq., the foundational form of our total design system. What number of designs did you undergo earlier than the ultimate model?Arriving on the remaining mark required a very expansive inventive course of. We explored a whole bunch of design approaches—testing a variety of symbols, constructions, and visible metaphors—to totally perceive the breadth of what CNBC might develop into. That rigorous exploration helped reveal what felt true to the model, what honored our legacy, and what greatest expressed the ambition and readability on the core of our id, in the end guiding us to the mark we launched right now.How lengthy did the whole course of take?From task to remaining approval, the whole course of took about 7 months. What makes designing a brand new brand so tough?Redesigning the brand of an iconic model is inherently difficult as a result of it requires balancing a long time of recognition with the necessity for significant evolution. Each resolution carries weight—what to protect, what to refine, and what to rethink fully—whereas guaranteeing the ultimate mark nonetheless feels unmistakably true to the model. This work calls for precision, restraint, and a deep understanding of each legacy and future potential. It locations the design staff squarely in what [Theodore] Roosevelt known as “The Area”—doing the exhausting, considerate, scrutinized, and sometimes unseen work required to maneuver a storied model confidently into its subsequent chapter.So you could trust in your inner design staff?We’re lucky to have a small however exceptionally proficient model design staff that’s deeply dedicated to how CNBC reveals up on this planet and throughout every platform. Their experience, rigor, and dedication to the CNBC model have been central to this mission and proceed to raise CNBC’s visible id. I’ve full confidence of their capacity, thoughtfulness, creativity, and a robust sense of duty for the work we put into the world.