Fontsmith has designed a brand new bespoke typeface for Sky News HD, the UK’s first high definition digital news channel.
Sky News prides itself on straightforward and concise storytelling in the best traditions of commercial, populist television. Fontsmith were briefed directly by the Sky News design team to create a typeface with a balance of impact and distinction that complied with intricate systems in relation to typeface rendering, legibility and line length.
In May 2010 Sky News became the first UK news channel to go HD. Sky News aims to be the brand that consistently delivers the news clearly and in a convenient way. The channel appeals to people who are fully engaged with the modern world, who pride themselves on being up with the latest trends. For them, it is the most modern, innovative news channel. Sky are first for breaking news. It has a flashy urgency and excited personality. With a stylish, upmarket, authoritative, distinctive, credible, straightforward, confident, tone of voice reflecting the existing brand values, the new fonts needed to be innovative and pioneering, ground breaking, passionate, to fit the brand promise of being first.
With the new HD format, the channel will at times become far more information rich. The entire creative had to reflect the new ‘personality’ of Sky News. It needed to be totally recognisable as the new Sky News HD channel but not at the expense of legibility. Never compromising legibility for aesthetics, Fontsmith found the right balance. "The real beauty in what Fontsmith have created is its unique use-ability. The font weights are bespoke; somewhere between bold and regular; ideal for news font which is often required to shout and whisper in the same breath." says Chyaz Buffet, Design Director of Sky News.
Chyaz continues “The font has it's own character and personality without overstepping the mark, making it individual enough to become an brand asset, without ever detracting from its purpose as an information provider. Fontsmith have achieved a unique amount of breathing space within the character set, demonstrating far greater legibility and clarity than any font I have previously worked with. It was an almost impossible brief - a font for body and headline; 15pt to 100pt. In all aspects Fontsmith pulled it off and just as importantly, were an absolute pleasure to work with making the process enjoyable and easy (even with the instant and last minute changes)."
