Pentagram brings the magic and mischief of Roald Dahl’s stories to RDSC brand identity

Seen as one of the greatest storytellers of the 20th Century and a cornerstone in children’s literature, Roald Dahl is an author we’ve all fallen in love with growing up, or again as adults. Renowned for tales such as Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox and The BFG, the master storyteller has certainly put some unforgettable characters out into the world (Matilda being one of our favourites, as a rather bookish lot).

Tasked with no easy feat of developing a brand identity for this literary legacy, Pentagram’s Emily Oberman and team have designed the new look for The Roald Dahl Story Company (RDSC) – managers of Dahl’s copyrights under the arms of Netflix since 2021. Developing everything from new publishing pursuits, digital products, major new films, stage shows and further television series from his comprehensive oeuvre, the RDSC’s aim is to bring the author’s stories “to even more fans around the world in new and exciting ways”.

Looking for an identity that would fuel the expansion of the global storytelling franchise and keep the charm and wit of his wacky tales intact, the program needed “a built-in flexibility to accommodate his range as well as three separate target audiences – preschool, family and adults”, shares Emily. To do this, the team first developed a custom typeface, brilliantly named Fantastic Mr. Font, which has the ability to shift its forms according to the tone of each of his stories.

Developed in collaboration with type foundry Pangram Pangram, the font is a customisation of its existing font PP Acma, turning its already unconventional characteristics into something “more mischievous”. The character set’s best qualities are put on display in the company’s new logo, which was designed to carefully balance the “joy and darkness of Dahl’s stories”, Emily explains: “Dahl’s tales are known for embracing all sorts of tonal shifts – from warm and silly nonsense, to the dark and macabre, to biting humour and wordplay.” So it was important that the typeface’s tail ends could curl up for more joyous moments, with “curiously shaped counters” and letterforms tilted over like toppling books, but that it could also have “a sharper, sleeker look” in adult branding, with alternative versions to most letters.

The adaptable and expressive forms that built Fantastic Mr. Font also came in useful for a library of graphic patterns and elements that the design team built into bold colour backgrounds that take from the tones of Dahl’s warm and familiar book covers – canvases for Quentin Blake’s classic illustrations. Inseparable from the stories, Blake’s illustrations are also used throughout the design system, accompanied by these new, more graphic additions that “reference quintessential elements from Dahl’s stories”, Emily adds, “like a golden ticket, the peach, and birds carrying strings.”

The inventive design system will tie together projects across the company’s remit including publishing, giving its range of creative outputs a cohesive look and feel. In all its variation, the team intend for RDSC’s new identity to “celebrate the wit and whimsy of Dahl’s storytelling with imagination, creativity and most importantly the mischief”, ends Emily.