A Light at the End of the Bracket

The old logo was technically fine but pretty boring although it might not matter as I don’t think that logo was public-facing before the platform officially launched earlier this year. The new logo, in its fullest form is nicely executed but might have one too many things going on, especially in contrast with its most minimal form where an opening and closing bracket forming a “B” is all that’s needed. On its own, I really love the unicase wordmark with the funky lowercase “g” executed perfectly to fit in with the rest of the condensed letters. When placed inside the bracket, that “g” demands a little too much attention that takes away from the curly bracket on the right. There is a middle step in which a “B” is placed within the bracket and I would have personally skipped that moment as it again detracts from the brackets making a “B”. Finally, in its more pared down state, the brackets work quite well in making the “B” and I wonder if that could have been paired with a more subdue wordmark.Nonetheless, the logo, in all its forms, is carried out with energy in the application through the always-effective logo-as-window treatment that works particularly well in the wordmark as it can reveal a lot through a little. The brackets are then expanded into a headline system that extends the visual language of the logo in a nice way — although at times it’s hard to follow on the right side which pieces have a top or bottom serif and which don’t — while introducing a fun and unexpected typeface, Gimlet Display. In actual application, at least on their Instagram page, they have gone rogue with the execution and it’s a little all over the place. Overall, I have a hard time understanding for whom exactly Bright exists and what it is or what kind of niche it’s trying to fill — there are perhaps some famous people in there but not really — but what this identity does well is to present it as a platform with an editorial and content-first presence but also feeling approachable and somewhat youthful.