Dictionary.com and its sibling brand, Thesaurus.com, are where learning happens. But more than being the world’s leading digital resource for definitions and synonyms, they are transforming the way we engage with language. The online publisher invited us to help develop a new identity for each website that would reposition the brands as portals to a world beyond words.
The new identity was crafted to be broad in its appeal and application, able to connect with students of every age, teachers, writers and English language learners.
As a digital-first company, building recognition across the mobile app and browser-based ecosystem was critical. The identity builds brand equity through a persistent search bar experience, redesigned with a prominent symbol expression and corresponding brand color.
The brand system brings a delightful sensibility while achieving optimum site performance. A custom variable font, designed in partnership with TypeMates, integrates a range of weights to enhance type hierarchy, legibility, and expressiveness without sacrificing load time.
A custom set of illustrated icons extends the visual language into functional aspects of the product, helping delineate between on-going content themes.
With daily content ranging from the functional to the expressive, the visual system and guidelines were designed to offer a series of interchangeable expressions that could be deployed efficiently and with ease.
