Time to evolve.
Mothership, Singapore's media behemoth, has just gotten a much needed facelift this week. With a new logo, revamped website and new site section, Mothership is ready for greater days ahead.
About Mothership
I don't think this section is needed but just in case...
-Mothership
"Mothership is a Singapore-born Internet media company and one of the largest digital platforms in Singapore. We attract an average monthly visitorship of 5 million, with 60 per cent of our audience being between the ages of 25 and 44."
-Mothership
In other words, if you are as old as/older than Singapore, you might not have heard of this website before. The good folks previously shared my article about Eunoia JC's branding, which I am thankful for :)
Now let's talk about Mothership's new look.
"Bubbleship"
Mothership had 2 previous logos before the current one: the first logo featured a serif font and the other a tall sans-serif. Both of them had the same blimp icon.
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| Mothership v1 and v2 |
Mothership's newest logo consists of a new blimp and a geometric typeface in a new color which signals a complete change from its past versions:
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| Mothership's current logo (Source) |
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| Mothership blimps, old and new |
RIP the old blimp. Sure, it reminds me of a cockroach (the shadow on the right and oval shape) but it was both cute and serious at the same time. Did you notice that the blimp looks like a chat bubble?
The new blimp looks more friendly, turning the cute factor way up, and now it looks like a real bubble. Mothership is perhaps hinting at becoming a more teens-centric media outlet. Other than the intended smile, other noticeable changes include making the icon more compact with rounded edges. This would be useful in placing logos in crazy small places such your web browser's tab favicon.
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| So cute! |
I'm not sure how this new logo might affect the way people perceive Mothership, but if I am reading Mothership's articles for the first time, I would expect to read about light-hearted articles instead of serious national issues, e.g. politics. The logo looks too candid to carry any authority, unlike its predecessor. However, given the conversational and approachable style of Mothership articles, perhaps the change is for the better.
By the way, Mothership, if you are reading this, please consider selling cute plushies of your blimp. It would make for a good pillow to hug!
Lowercase is the new thang
Following the trend of using geometric fonts, Mothership's new wordmark is a safe choice which gets the job done: it's friendly and approachable. It seems like every company, regardless of industry, is on board with this trend; Mastercard, Deliveroo and Zendesk, to name a few examples.
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| It's a phase. |
Only Happy Colours
Mothership's logo is now orange in colour, a departure from the previous grey, red and white combo. The use of softer tones can also be seen on their website's header, which is in bright red. Well, brighter than the red on Singapore's flag.
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| 1819's yellow (read on top find out about 1819!), Mothership's orange and Mothership's website header in red |
Website Redesign
One of the reasons why Mothership rebranded was because of its previous web design.
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| The signature nice leh. Ok we forgive you :P (Source) |
The revamped Mothership website looks inspired by Buzzfeed and it features clean, clear categories for easy navigation. Props to the web designers who did a great job at bringing the site to 2017.
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| Mothership's new homepage. (Source) |
1819
Mothership also introduced a new section along with its rebrand.
"1819 is a labour of love by Mothership.sg where we tell stories from Singapore's history, heritage & culture. We aim to create a community of passionate history buffs who read, write, & share history stuff & hopefully create new history for our home."
Check out 1819's logo:
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| Same style as Mothership's new logo! (Source) |
Giving Credit when it's due
Mothership did a great job at crediting designers for their work. Surprisingly, it is not a common practice in Singapore for companies to publicly thank the people behind their new logos. Look at my previous articles - I was unable to find the person/agency responsible for many company rebrands.
Mothership credited the artist behind it's newest cover picture on Facebook, as well as the web development and design team behind its revamped website. Their individual websites are in the captions of the following photos.
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| Cover photo by Goh Wei Choon |
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| Taken from the footer of Mothership.sg: Web Design by Teo Yu Sheng and Teo Yu Siang. Web Dev by Ripplewerkz |
Hopefully, more will follow in Mothership's footsteps and start thanking people who are "makeup artists" of companies (designers make things pretty :P).
Overall, Motherhsip's rebrand asserts its dominance in the crowded world of Internet media outlets in Singapore. After being in the game for quite a number of years, there's no better time to rebrand than now so as to reach greater goals and achieve greater successes in the future.
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