RBK TV (РБК) is the business television channel of the Russian media group RBC (RosBusinessConsulting). The channel’s visual identity is shared with the broader RBC media holding, which also includes a news agency, newspaper and website, and the logo used on air is the same mark that represents the parent company.
Design and History
In early February 2013, the RBC group launched a large-scale rebranding of its media projects, changing both the logo and the visual design of its products. The company stated that the goal was to become more dynamic and closer to its target audience, and to make information more effective and functional for Russian business. The television channel was among the first properties to show the changes, following its 2012 switch to 16:9 broadcasting and the launch of a new studio complex with 3D and 4D graphics capabilities. [1]
According to a later report in Sostav.ru, the 2013 logo change was the first in the company’s history. [2] The new mark replaced the previous logo, which consisted of three bars. The new symbol is a square divided diagonally into two triangles, one light green and one dark green. [3]
In 2018, RBC conducted what its art director of marketing communications, Evgenia Datsko, described as a “soft rebranding” that had been in progress for more than a year. The familiar gradient was removed from the logo, the font used across products was changed, and new visual elements were introduced. Datsko explained that the style developed in 2014 already looked outdated by March 2016 and did not match the brand’s positioning, but a full-scale rebranding was considered too risky for a major media brand with 23 million unique monthly visitors. The team chose instead to simplify and “cut off” the excess, emphasizing the brand’s core components. [4]
Meaning and Symbolism
Research conducted by RBC among loyal and non-loyal audiences showed that users perceived the logo of two triangles as a duality of points of view, and the diagonal between them as objectivity and development. This understanding became the basis for the 2018 restyling. [4]
In the 2018 restyling, the logo was rebuilt according to a modular grid, and that grid became a signature pattern for the brand. RBC described itself as an informational “framework” on the basis of which thinking people can form their own opinions, and the grid became a metaphor for such a framework, something one can always rely on. [4]
Typography and Design
As part of the 2018 soft rebranding, RBC adopted the Graphic typeface by Christian Schwartz, with a Cyrillic version developed by Ilya Ruderman. The typeface was chosen for its universality across all platforms and communications. A second typeface, Kazimir (CSTM Fonts, by Yuri Ostromentsky and Ilya Ruderman), was selected for product design. The company also moved away from dark green as an accent color in favor of light green, which was described as fresher, lighter and more neutral. [4]
The new visual identity was built on a white background with generous white space, large headlines in Semibold, Regular for body text, and noticeable differences in type sizes between text styles. Accents in text use a light green “marker” highlight, a reference to the habit of marking important passages while reading. [4]
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