'90s kids, hold onto your hats, because Nickelodeon is rebranding. The home of your favorite childhood shows like SpongeBob SquarePants and Drake And Josh is getting hip to 2017 with a fresh look that will debut the night of this year's Kids' Choice Awards.
The rebrand, which features clean fonts and bright colors, was all about reflecting the "play surprise, and imagination" in kids' lives.
"We really wanted to highlight how much surprise and fun is a part of kids' everyday lives, so we took as our inspiration the surreal nature of GIFs, memes, and emoticons and created an entire new visual vocabulary," said the Senior Vice President Creative Director Art and Design for Nickelodeon Group and Nick@Nite, Michael Waldron. Yes, memes are officially an artistic muse.
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"Using a mix of real kids and on-air talent, the refresh looks through the lens of how kids see things—the unpredictable, extraordinary and joyful nature of a child's imagination," Waldron continued.
The images range from abstract interpretations to program-specific illustrations that are less about slime and nostalgia and more about on-trend portrayals of what it's like to be a kid in the age of the internet.
The color palette is also getting an update, moving on from the bold orange to also include purple, blue, lime, and cream.
This rebrand comes at the perfect time. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this will be Nickelodeon's third year as the number one channel among core children's demographics, and it's up 9% for kids between ages 2 and 11. It also comes while there's been some reshuffling behind the scenes at parent company Viacom, who has decided to renew their focus on what they consider to be a core brand.
To see the new brand in action, check out its official debut during Saturday's Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, hosted by John Cena.