Our Rebranding Is Live
Ever since launching the Startup Fund, we had started to think about ways in which we could make Liberal Currents a more buttoned-down, professionalized organization. One small way we wanted to do this was to update our logo, which we've had since we launched in early 2017 as a pure volunteer publication that paid neither authors nor editors.
Lauren Orsini created that logo, and the L lettermark, at the same time she created a custom Wordpress template for us to launch with. I still have the original assets saved in my personal Dropbox account:
In 2020, when we launched a Patreon and began paying authors, we updated our Wordpress template as well. Here is Lauren's original design next to the one we replaced it with:
Sadly Archive.org's Wayback Machine couldn't load images properly for the second template
In 2023 we switched from Wordpress to Ghost, and at that point put in place our current template, which we have tweaked in various ways since then.
Throughout this period, however, we never touched the original logo design.
Now, with our current funding level, and with full-time employees running the organization for the first time, we felt we were ready.
We had engaged Nicholas Mulholland previously for a few small design projects, such as the Neon Liberalism logo. I reached out to him to redesign our logo, and he proposed one better: a full Brand Stylekit. Along with his sister, Lexie, they worked on this for the past few months, and recently delivered it. The logo and some other designs have been rolled out now, but the stylekit itself will play a pivotal part in a larger redesign of the publication we are pursuing now.
Here is a small sampling of what they provided.
Primary logos in a variety of colors:
As well as lettermarks:
There are secondary and tertiary logos to choose from as well, and background "currents" themed designs you will notice in our public-facing material moving forward. There are assets for social media posts and video thumbnails.
I don't want to make the corporate executive mistake of thinking everyone is going to be as excited about a rebranding as the company wants them to be. But I did want to keep you, our audience and community, in the loop, and avoid confusion with the change.
We're working hard to put our best foot forward and this is just one small way we're doing so. Look forward to what else we have in store—especially The Reconstruction Papers, which are rapidly concluding the editing phase and moving towards the details of the print design.
