Challenge

It’s not hyperbole to say Figma has fans, not just customers. They’ve been thoroughly embraced by web and product designers, their visual identity is widely recognized in those communities, and their brand elements have scaled with the company’s growth.
But if it takes everyone on a team to turn a good idea into a great one, Figma had to start inviting them all to the table—the developers, producers, writers and others who work with designers every day. While Figma makes it possible for all of them to brainstorm and create in real-time, many of them still didn’t know they could—or should—start working that way.
Figma asked COLLINS to help craft a brand story and campaign that would debunk the Myth of the Lone Genius and get everyone from the intern to the C-suite collaborating on their platform.

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The Solution

Streaming content is now saturated with endless choices driven by ruthless algorithms. As a result, established TV networks stick to known formulas to win over the code. Few take any risk on emerging talent or original series (or even pilots) to win over viewers.

But Freeform, a division of Disney, makes its name by backing young adult stories that buck tropes, flip scripts, and curb such conventions. They give narratives that are usually on the periphery a platform. Centering othered stories. And they needed to find the language to galvanize this future they were crafting.Last year, Freeform fully evolved to be streaming-first and their transformed programming challenged even more industry conventions. So their purpose, story and brand voice needed to transform as well.

From channel to creator. From “on Freeform” to “Made by Freeform.”Through this lens, we worked with the leaders at Freeform to create a brand that saw who they served not as an age, but a stage. Not an audience, but a community. A tribe of people united by a mindset. The key insight? They’re not coming-of-age, but in a constant state of becoming—and want shows that help them expand their world, not escape from it.

This gave Freeform a new core promise: To push new perspectives. With it, they could articulate what made Freeform different and attractive to audiences—deep stories told from emerging perspectives that helped people see and shape their place in the world for the better.

Like any great story—Freeform twists and turns. Always in a state of becoming, like their audience. With a limitless capacity to reinvent itself through color, shape and movement.

When Freeform speaks, it’s through an iconic modernist typeface that never looks resolved and is always being turned on its head. Taking the original cut of Helvetica, Neue Haas Grotesk (designed in 1957-1961 by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffman), we transformed it in collaboration with Monotype. Giving Freeform a voice that invites you to look again and again.

Freeform is now a beacon for the creative adventurousness of the voices that make it up. And the new audience that streams it.

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