Hash Milhan

NewsWire

Client
NewsWire
Discipline
Brand identity
Year
2020
  • Founded by Azzam AmeenFormerly of the BBC Sinhala Service
  • 386,000 on Facebook750,000+ across Facebook, X and Instagram
  • Since 2020On the masthead and every channel

NewsWire is Azzam Ameen’s round-the-clock news service for Sri Lanka. Azzam made his name at the BBC Sinhala Service, trusted for honest, fair and balanced reporting, and NewsWire carries that name. He asked me to sharpen its logo without losing the N his readers already knew.

I kept the ribbon and hid a W for Wire in three lines that run through it. The lines are the news cables too, the wires stories travel down before they reach a newsroom.

Azzam and I were at school together. Six years on, the mark heads newswire.lk and every NewsWire channel, followed by more than 750,000 people, about half of them on Facebook.

From the old N

An evolution, not a replacement.

  1. The previous NewsWire logo: a blue ribbon N over the name in lower case

    01Before. The ribbon N readers already knew.

  2. 02N for News. The ribbon redrawn as three lines.

  3. 03Simplified. Fewer turns, one rhythm.

  4. 04W for Wire. The lines rise into a W. The ribbon folds back in.

How it’s built

Scroll to draw the guides.

  1. 01Five stripes. Three ribbons and the two gaps between them, all one width, w, at 48°.
  2. 02One slant. Every ribbon starts on one 20.6° line and ends on a parallel one. Each turns over a circle of about 1.4w.
  3. 03The fold. The first ribbon folds down into the stem of the N, its foot cut at the same slant.
  4. 04W for Wire. Three uprights rise out of the wires and spell a W, their tops cut on a matching slant.
  5. 05Finish. Vijaya Blues, deeper at the top right and lighter at the fold, so the ribbon keeps its depth.

Read it twice

One mark, three readings. Pick one to see it.

Colour

Named in Sinhala, for a Sri Lankan masthead.

Anguru Black

Hex
#212121
RGB
33, 33, 33

Vijaya Blues

Hex
#2F5892 to #4686CD
RGB
47, 88, 146 / 70, 134, 205

Hima White

Hex
#FFFFFF
RGB
255, 255, 255

Anguru is charcoal and hima is snow. Vijaya, victory, is a gradient of two blues, deeper at the top of the mark and brighter at the fold, so the ribbon keeps its depth.

Type

Spaced capitals under a geometric mark.

Josefin Sans Bold

Geometric like the mark, with the same sharp points in its W. Set in spaced capitals, the name reads calmly at any size, from a masthead to a profile picture.

Lockups

Stacked for squares, one line for mastheads.

  • StackedThe main logo.
  • On blueProfile pictures.
  • On blackDark grounds and video.
  • Single lineMastheads and headers.
  • With the addressGraphics that travel without a link.
  • The single-line logo with the word Sinhala in Sinhala script under the name
    SinhalaFor NewsWire’s Sinhala service.

On screen

Most of NewsWire is watched, so the identity has to work on video.

Azzam Ameen in a television interview, with a NewsWire lower third carrying his name, the NewsWire bug in the corner and a ticker along the bottom
Mockup: the lower third, bug and ticker over a still of Azzam from a television interview. Both bars end in a cut at the mark’s own 48°.
A NewsWire transition between stories, over a street in Colombo Fort at golden hour: the three ribbons of the N fly in along their 48 degree axis and lock together, then the camera dives into the stem and blue stripes sweep off onto a press conference
Mockup: the transition between stories. The three ribbons fly in along the mark’s own 48° and lock into the N, the camera dives into its stem, and the stripes sweep off onto the next shot.
Azzam Ameen reporting from a street crowd, holding a microphone with a blue NewsWire mic flag
Mockup: Azzam on a story, with the box logo on his mic flag.
Azzam Ameen's profile picture, an illustration of him holding a microphone with a NewsWire mic flag
Azzam’s own profile picture, mic flag and all.

The box logo carries the brand where the name is too small to read: a profile picture, a mic flag, a corner of the screen.

  • A NewsWire reel cover: Tesla unveils what it says is a flying car, with the NewsWire badge above the headline
  • A NewsWire reel cover: Keells, then and now, with the NewsWire badge over a supermarket front
  • A NewsWire reel cover: Kumar Sangakkara at a press conference, with the NewsWire badge
  • A NewsWire reel cover in Sinhala about a Metro Bus test run, framed in blue, with the NewsWire badge

On every reel, in English and Sinhala, the badge sits between the picture and the story.

In use

Six years on, still at the top of the page.

The newswire.lk masthead: the single-line logo in white on dark grey, over a blue menu bar
The masthead at newswire.lk.
NewsWire's profile on X: the single-line logo as the header and the blue box logo as the profile picture, 288.4 thousand followers
On X, header and profile picture, for 288,000 followers.

NewsWire posts around the clock. Every post carries the box logo, so the N is the most-seen part of the identity.

Identity
Hash Milhan
For
NewsWire, Sri Lanka