Twitch, the streaming platform used by 15 million people, is giving its logo and design a facelift and rolling out its first brand campaign to celebrate the new look.
Announced today at TwitchCon, the company’s festival, the brand introduced new logos and a visual identity with a nod to its users. Additionally, a national ad campaign across digital and out-of-home will arrive in the coming weeks, all meant to serve as messaging that Twitch wants to be the hub of the streaming community.
Being that hub means providing tools and resources for its creators, and the company will be announcing different tools on Friday, saying that all of its product and design decisions tie into giving more interactivity and control to people running their streams.
“We needed a better design system in place, so, as we give more power, we’re operating from a clean starting point,” said Joel Johnson, a company spokesperson.
Tricia Choi, director of design systems at Twitch, added: “The brand expression from typography to iconography aligns with supporting the streamers.”
In an era when the product is the brand, and, often, the brand is the product, Twitch is using this subtle redesign as a way “to give power to users.”
This new design—a little less purple— added a set of colors to align with creators, with different brand accessories and how creators can choose their own color using the company’s new font, Roobert. Twitch believes that giving users control of their own streams is a step in the right direction.
“As we’re working on a brand refresh, we’re paving the way to give community more tools,” Choi said. “We’re now able to do work on accessibility, for example. And light/dark mode is more accurate.”
With a new tagline, “You’re already one of us,” the company said that it’s leaning into the social aspect of streaming.
“Twitch has been around for nine years, coming out of video game culture,” Johnson said. “But as sports and music and other passions have grown up organically, we want to go to the world and say ‘There’s already stuff on Twitch for you.’”
Choi echoed that sentiment, saying, “When we approached the brand refresh, we made sure to understand the community—not only externally, but internally—because we are part of that community.”
When asked if Twitch streamers will notice (let alone care about) this redesign, Johnson said, “It’s hard to say. My gut, having been part of several brand refreshes, people will really like this. We have an incredibly engaged community; people have Glitch [the company’s icon] tattooed on their bodies. My instinct is people will like it.”
