Rotten TomatoesCopied

Rotten Tomatoes launched in 1998 to aggregate film and TV reviews into a single score, its name borrowed from audiences throwing tomatoes at a bad stage performance. Its logo dated from 2001: bouncing, out-of-line yellow letters with a black outline and drop shadow, tomatoes standing in for the Os of Tomatoes. Adweek said the aim of the new identity was to keep the vibe fans knew while creating something that could live across digital, social and mobile.

Pentagram partner Emily Oberman and her team designed it, in collaboration with the site's users and fans, according to Design Week. The new wordmark is a cleaner iteration: the letters sit on a level line, the logo is flat and block red, and the Os became more abstract tomatoes. Negative space forms a green splat, the rotten tomato. A shorthand version builds the letters RT out of negative space inside the red tomato. The palette runs black, white, red, two yellows and two greens, and a new set of icons was drawn for the rating system, where a fresh tomato marks a well-reviewed film and a rotten one a poorly reviewed film.

The identity was unveiled publicly at South by Southwest in March 2018, rolling out on the site and app first, with a website refresh to follow. Adweek called it by far the most drastic change to the brand in its history.

Design Week's readers were split and loud. Some loved the much-needed simplification; others found the red glaring and the icons, especially the popcorn, harder to read. One commenter called it the chunky sans serif virus spreading; another said the new site looked like a bootleg version of the original.

MediaPost added the process and the history. The redesign took eight months of iteration with extensive testing among fans, and the new logo and icons made their first real world appearance at SXSW, at a live debate in which fans argued with professional critics. Earlier logos had moved from caterpillar bite marks in 1998 to rotting tomatoes in 2000 and vector tomatoes in 2001. Rollout began on the site, apps, social and video before reaching partner platforms. Testing a splat on the people who actually use the scores is the right instinct; the icons are the product here.

The criticism of the site was fair at launch, but the logo holds up. Levelling the type and flattening the colour lost some goofy charm, yet the splat in negative space is a genuinely witty touch, and the RT tomato gives the brand an icon it never had. It is a rare grown-up redesign that kept a sense of humour.