Pinterest (2021)Copied

Pinterest's brand had grown piecemeal, and the company wanted one that put inspiration, the reason people use it, at the centre. Working with Made Thought and its own design team under design director Andreas Helin, it launched a unified identity in May 2021.

Helin's own framing was a critique of social media: feeds had made visual culture passive, and Pinterest wanted to be where people find inspiration for their future rather than validation of their past. The identity was branded Endless Inspiration, and Adweek reported it would roll out in phases through 2021.

The red P logo stayed. The new system is built instead on imagery: collages of pins selected against five principles, visually appealing, novel, relevant, positive and actionable, and no single fixed palette, so colour comes from the content. The type is the most considered element. Grilli Type was commissioned to draw Pinterest Sans, a distinctive sans that would not overshadow the pins. References included Futura Alternates, Avenir and Johnston Sans, and the foundry warmed the geometric skeleton by lowering the midlines of capitals, tapering curves and loosening round letters. The italic leans eight degrees forward, drawing on handwriting. A separate Pinterest UI cut has a taller x-height and vertically cut stroke endings for tight, legible text in the product.

Made Thought creative director Alistair Webb told Design Week that there is no singular Pinner, so the outlook had to be democratic, and that standing apart from the approachable aesthetic of tech was in the crosshairs from the outset. The studio built a tool that generates palettes from any image pulled from the platform. Grilli Type cited Futura, Avenir and Johnston as references, tilted the italic eight degrees forward, and drew a separate Pinterest UI cut with ink traps and a taller x-height for small sizes. The only comment under Design Week's story called it meaningless visual gobbledygook, which tells you how little noise the launch made.

Design Week and It's Nice That both credit London studio Made Thought, working with Pinterest's in-house team, and Grilli Type on Pinterest Sans.

This is a rare rebrand where the typeface is the identity. Letting user content supply the colour is a smart, humble move for a platform that is only as good as its pins, and the restraint means the brand ages with its users' taste rather than a designer's.