MTV Logo Redesign
1999
After completing a font production project for the 1998 MTV Movie Awards, Kevin Dresser was asked to explore redesigning the iconic MTV logo. The challenge was to update an iconic logo for the 21st Century.
The original 1981 logo was a sign of the times as it felt like graffiti art peeled off the side of a subway car. The wide and bold “M” with the sharp centered vertex point along with the mildly sober teenage spray scribbled “TV” was perfectly built for the 1980s. The revised 1994 MTV logo was only the second incarnation of the 1981 logo. The only change made was inverting blacks to whites and whites to blacks. The artwork remained identical. Dresser pointed out that the original logo was treated as a cartoon in the early years of MTV. Promotions often used the logo used in animations and claymations. This cemented MTV’s identity as playful and expandable in an infinite amount of artistic ways.
COLOR STUDIES
CUSTOM LETTERING
GRAFFITI
ORIGINAL MTV LOGO, 1994
CUSTOM “FAT CAP” GRAFFITI LETTERS
As a graffiti artist turned designer, Dresser first tackled the spray-painted “TV”. Using common graffiti-tagging techniques of the 1990s, he created a modernized “TV” through the use of a special cap on his spray can that flared the letterforms.
REDESIGNED ‘M’ ALONG WITH UPDATED ‘TV’ IN A 1990’S GRAFFITI STYLE
This sleeker graffiti treatment now called for a capital letter “M” that moved away from the earlier, molded-in-clay feel. He removed the shadow as it was not deep enough to feel like a proper dimensional letterform. This cleared up the issue of the busy line breaks between the letter and the shadow as well. The new “M” is balanced and now accommodating to fit the “TV” within the letter creating a more cohesive mark that was built at the same width as the original logo.
VIDEO STILL: PHIL COLLINS “IN THE AIR TONIGHT”
COLOR PALETTE BASED ON MUSIC VIDEO STILL
Reminiscing on the electric colors of 1980’s design, art, and fashion, Dresser looked to one of the videos played on MTV’s first day of broadcast on August 1, 1981. He captured a still frame from Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight” video as a color palette. This brief moment of the video used special effects to psychedelicize Phil Collins’ face evocative of the Beatle portraits by Richard Avedon in 1967. The colorful branding is versatile and the result is a natural progression as though a new graffiti artist painted over an earlier artwork.
REDESIGNED LOGO WITH CHROMATIC BACKGROUND
REDESIGNED LOGO STUDIES USING BACK ‘M’
ALONG WITH THE NEW COLOR PALETTE
REDESIGNED LOGO STUDIES OF ‘M’ IN THE NEW
COLOR PALETTE AND A VIBRANT GRADIENT ‘TV’
REDESIGNED LOGO STUDIES MAKING USE OF THE FULL COLOR PALETTE