The archive · Brand & Identity · Strategic decision · 2022–2023
The Week turns its iconic red masthead into a flexible brand centrepiece
Tasked with an identity that could flex to new readers, Elmwood made the red masthead the centrepoint — guidelines and assets built around it.
The Week
What it had to solve
The Week, an iconic weekly political-commentary magazine, wanted a visual identity system that reflected its balanced editorial style and could flex with the brand to connect with new readers.
How it works
The Week is an iconic weekly magazine covering political commentary through a balanced point of view. When it challenged design consultancy Elmwood to create a new visual identity, the brief was that the system had to reflect that unique editorial style and flex with the brand to connect with new readers.
Elmwood's answer was not a new logo but a new job for an old one. The consultancy identified the magazine's iconic red masthead as the shorthand destined to become the centrepoint for brand storytelling and a device to deliver its key narrative, then created guidelines and a suite of assets in line with the master brand.
The masthead-led identity launched in late 2022 and the work is preserved in D&AD's awards archive as part of the 2023 Annual's Branding selection. What began as the top of the cover became the system the whole brand flexed around — an optimised shorthand that let The Week meet new readers without losing what made it recognisable.
Why it lands
- The masthead was the element readers already associated with The Week, so building on it spent no equity on teaching people a new mark.
- Treating the masthead as a storytelling device gave the identity a narrative job rather than a purely identificational one.
- Guidelines and an asset suite let the brand stretch into new reader contexts without fragmenting its look.
- One iconic centrepoint meant recognition survived every new touchpoint the brand entered.
What it did
The identity gave The Week an optimised brand shorthand it could carry across touchpoints to connect with readers on a more meaningful level, and the work is preserved in D&AD's awards archive as part of the 2023 Annual's Branding selection.
What you can take
The asset an audience already recognises can do the branding work: make the most iconic element the carrier of the story, and the system can flex without losing itself.
Since then
The system launched in late 2022 and became the way The Week presented its brand world beyond the cover. D&AD's awards archive preserves the identity as an example of a masthead-led brand system; the idea that the most recognised element should carry the story is the transferable part for any publication facing new audiences.
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