The archive · Brand & Identity · Strategic decision · 2022
VICE Global IDs turn the channel logo into an open canvas for world artists
VICE's in-house team built a series of animated logos, each by a different global artist given no boundaries, as an ongoing collaborative channel.
VICE Media Group
What it had to solve
VICE's in-house team needed animated logo IDs for the channel. Instead of one house style, they built a collection of animated VICE logos showcasing a range of talented artists from around the world, with no creative boundaries.
How it works
Logo IDs — the short animated signatures between programmes — usually reinforce one fixed mark. VICE's in-house team treated theirs differently: the VICE global logo ID project is a collection of animated VICE logos that showcases a range of talented artists from around the world who have been given no boundaries.
Each ID lets an artist reimagine the VICE logo in their own voice. The goal was not a one-off identity film but an ongoing collaborative channel, one that would elevate the visionary spirit of the brand while celebrating the voices of the global creative community.
The creative move is a deliberate loss of control: the company's most protected asset, its mark, is handed to outsiders who are told there are no boundaries. VICE's logo becomes a rotating gallery, and the brand's job becomes choosing and championing artists rather than policing a lockup.
Why it lands
- An animated logo series usually enforces consistency; VICE inverted the brief by giving artists no boundaries, so each ID adds a voice instead of repeating one.
- Making the project ongoing turns a campaign into a channel: every new artist keeps the brand's identity in motion and gives audiences a reason to watch the bumpers.
- Ceding the logo to outsiders signals that VICE is a curator of creative voices, which is a truer brand statement than any house style could make.
- Because each artist keeps their own style, the work doubles as promotion of the artists themselves, so the brand and its creative community grow together.
What it did
The logo collection became an ongoing platform that celebrates global creative voices while keeping VICE's mark in constant motion, and the work earned a place in the D&AD awards archive under Branding.
What you can take
A media brand can turn its own logo into a curated platform: hand the mark to outside artists with no brief, and the brand becomes a patron whose identity is rewritten with every signature.
Since then
The series was already ongoing by mid-2022, when it appeared in Motionographer and was listed at the 2022 Motion Awards; individual IDs by new artists kept winning recognition in later cycles, and the project sits in the D&AD awards archive under Branding. The archive entry records no view counts; the case stands on a brand that made its own logo a permanent, open gallery.
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