In a music streaming world, it's easy to think the radio era is dead, but KISS Radio is here to prove that's far from the truth. Recently unveiling a slick new brand identity, the UK station has shifted its focus towards the next generation, proving that playfulness and personality can inspire a whole new audience of music lovers.
With younger generations starting to embrace MP3 players and dumbphones, KISS Radio's rebrand comes at a perfect time, when analogue media and nostalgia are on the rise. Bright, punchy and modern, the new identity is a shining example of a contemporary brand identity bursting with revitalised energy and confidence.
Created by NOT Wieden+Kennedy, KISS Radio's new identity centres around a simple 'x' motif – an iconic digital sig-off that acts as a playful visual anchor for the brand. This smooch-like imagery continues throughout the rebrand with the station's new logo design emulating a 'puckered' appearance through its shape, animation and warped typography.
Spanning KISS's expansive radio stations, including KISSTORY, KISSTORY R&B, KISS DANCE, and KISS XTRA, the new identity provides each sub-brand with custom icons and individual colour palettes to create their own personality, whilst still evoking the central master brand.
"KISS are blessed with a shape that phonetically says their brand name. Using an ‘X’ in this way felt like too good an opportunity to miss. Inspired by how KISS’ target audience text each other, the logo is often unconventionally placed at the end of a sentence as the sign off, creating a chatty, mate-y feel. What’s more you can get away with saying basically anything as long as you sign it off with a cheeky x," explains Adam Hunt, Design Director at NOT Wieden+Kennedy.
When we knew the logo was literally going to be a kiss, we asked ourselves the question: what if the logo didn’t just look like a kiss, but it, and the identity as a whole, could behave like one?,“ he adds.
“The identity, in itself, is incredibly simple. It doesn't just look like a kiss, but behaves like one too. And this informed everything, from the puckered shape of the logo, to the warped typography of the individual K I S S letterforms, to the puckered animation style, and typographic treatment, all the way down to the unorthodox logo sign-off at the end of copy. KISS has always had mischief in its spirit and DNA. The opportunity for us was to take that soul and build an identity that behaves as playfully as the brand itself. We all wanted something that could live fluidly across everything, from social feeds to live events,” Adam says.
For more branding inspiration, take a look at Soho Radio's rebrand that nails the sticker book aesthetic, or check out how music taught this artist to experiment in his digital painting.
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