Brand Brothers engineered a modular brand identity for French publisher Glénat, creating a geometric visual language from the historic mark.

Founded in Grenoble in 1969 by comic enthusiast Jacques Glénat, the French publishing house manages an extensive catalog spanning comics, manga, youth literature, and fine art books. With flagship titles like Dragon Ball, One Piece, Akira, and Titeuf, the company represents over two thousand authors across four publishing universes. Brand Brothers encountered an immovable cornerstone: the historic logotype set in Futura Condensed Extra Bold. Instead of altering this established publishing landmark, the Paris-based studio enclosed the mark within a standardized red cartouche. This structured container serves as the primary canvas for an expansive, modular brand identity that scales across print catalogs, digital platforms, and large-scale public events.

Architecting a Modular Brand Identity

At the center of this brand identity is a precise typographic grid and geometric abstraction. Brand Brothers analyzed the letterform anatomy of the Futura Condensed Extra Bold mark, extracting two foundational shapes: the tall vertical oval from the uppercase "G" and the sharp right-angled triangle from the acute accent above the "é". By restricting the systemic construction exclusively to these two primal forms, the studio developed an extensive proprietary graphic alphabet. Proportions remain strictly governed by an exact dimensional matrix, ensuring structural consistency whether the wordmark appears in solid red, stark black, or refined wireframe configurations across corporate guidelines and editorial collateral.

The resulting visual language divides into complementary icon territories that bring expressive personality to the brand identity. "Emotion icons" map facial expressions and energetic eyes experienced during immersive reading, while "ambiance icons" define narrative atmospheres through abstract and figurative compositions. Brand Brothers articulated dedicated palettes for Glénat’s four publishing divisions: warm amber for BD, saturated orange for manga, emerald green for jeunesse, and periwinkle blue for beaux-livres. Accompanied by kinetic motion sequences that animate the geometric figures across digital screens, the modular lockups unify a massive literary catalog under a coherent corporate language.

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