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CNET has covered technology since 1994. On 27 April 2022 it announced a rebrand with a new identity and site design, as it expanded beyond tech into money, home, wellness, culture, cars and climate. The company said research among more than 3,000 media consumers showed people value sources they can depend on, and its content chief said trust would not change.

CNET partnered with Collins on the work, the company and Design Week reported. Design Week said the aim was to turn a tech-review site into a trustworthy, editorial-first news brand. A Collins creative director lamented endless 60-second news cycles and a firehose of information, and said progress was supposed to improve modern life.

To set CNET apart, the studio looked to broadcast journalism of the 1950s to 1970s, a time when, it argued, the press was more respected and public trust high, and to what people of that era imagined the future would be. That produced bold, surreal, almost sci-fi illustration for marketing; CNET said an illustrator and artist was engaged as part of the new expression. Sentinel, a slab serif, became the primary typeface for its authoritative and friendly tone and as a subtle nod to the slabs in CNET's original logo. The signature red was brightened to feel strong and arresting without overwhelming. The rebrand also brought custom illustration, motion graphics, new navigation and a CNET Shopping browser extension.

The retro-futurist mood is a good fit for a brand that literally grew up with the internet.

It's Nice That focused on the wordmark. A custom serif squeezes the four letters into the proportions of a square, trimming off the outer serifs, replacing the lowercase sans serif CNET had used for some 30 years. Collins' creative director Tom Elia said it was almost like creating an entirely different news outlet while still calling it CNET, and the studio set the brand against partisan publications on one side and clickbait factories on the other. A boxy masthead is a strong signal of seriousness; the test is whether the journalism underneath can keep up with the type.

Borrowing the authority of golden-age broadcast news for a site whose business is product reviews and deals is a bigger leap. The type and red are confident, and the illustrations are lovely. Whether trust can be designed in, rather than earned in the coverage, is the question the identity cannot answer.