Condé Nast is the global media company founded in 1909 when publisher Condé Montrose Nast purchased the weekly society gazette Vogue and transformed it into a monthly magazine. Today the company’s portfolio includes Vanity Fair, GQ, The New Yorker, Wired and Architectural Digest, among other titles across 31 markets. [1]
Design and History
The Condé Nast corporate wordmark is a serif logotype set in black, presenting the company name with the accented “e” in Condé. The mark functions as a parent-company identity, distinct from the individual magazine brands it owns, each of which maintains its own visual identity. [2]
An early Condé Nast Publications trademark appears in A Book of American Trade-Marks and Devices, compiled by Joseph Sinel and published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1924. The design was credited to Harry McVickar and Frank X. Leyendecker. [3]
In conjunction with the design of its 25-floor headquarters, Gensler developed a comprehensive branding and environmental graphics program for Condé Nast. The program was built around a “collective” brand concept that unifies the media company while allowing each of its many brands to retain its own distinct identity. Public spaces and elevator lobbies reflect this collective identity through archival images, corporate messages and standardized furniture. [4]
Condé Nast moved its U.S. headquarters to One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan in 2014. [5]
Meaning and Symbolism
The corporate wordmark is intentionally understated, allowing the company’s consumer-facing magazine brands to carry their own distinct visual identities. The Gensler “collective” brand approach celebrates Condé Nast’s evergreen content while acknowledging the constantly changing face of each brand’s culture and offer. [4]
Typography and Design
Condé Nast’s corporate website used Benton Modern and FF Dagny as webfonts in a 2013 design by Your Majesty. [6]
For its sub-brand identities, Condé Nast has commissioned custom typography. Font Bureau designed Skyline specifically as a headline typeface for Condé Nast Traveler, based on Imre Reiner’s Corvinus designs from 1929 and 1934. [7]
For The Scene, Condé Nast Entertainment’s digital video portal, Pentagram designed a brand identity centered on a triangle motif inspired by the “play” arrow in online video. The wordmark was based on Sharp Sans No. 1 by Village, chosen for its scalability across motion graphics applications. [8]
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