The new McKinsey look gets a Red Dot

The color blue means a lot to us at McKinsey, but at the moment we’re excited about another color entirely.

We’re thrilled to announce that our new visual identity, rolled out this February, has been recognized with a 2019 Red Dot Award in the category of Brand & Communication Design. This marks our firm’s third Red Dot this year after McKinsey Design in March earned two Red Dot Product Design awards for client work.

The new McKinsey look gets a Red Dot
The new McKinsey look gets a Red Dot

We’ve written a lot about our firm’s embrace of design and how designers and design thinking are helping our clients. McKinsey has also published “The business value of design,” the most extensive and rigorous research undertaken anywhere to quantify what good design can do for businesses.

According to global communications partner Steve John, our new visual identity is one example of how we’re taking our own medicine on that front.

“We’re not the same firm we were even five years ago,” says Steve. “Experts in artificial intelligence, data science, and design of all sorts have joined McKinsey to deliver change that matters to our clients. Updating our visual identity was an effort to better align our firm’s look and feel with who we are now, and we’re humbled by Red Dot’s recognition of that work.”

Director of brand communications Jane Goehring agrees. “What’s special about our firm is the combination of old and new: our heritage, which is rooted in our mission and values, and all of the new ways that we can help our clients create and sustain meaningful change,” she says. “Our new identity reflects that tension by embracing the idea of ‘high contrast’; which helps us cut through, and focus on what matters most.”

The Red Dot Award, which works “in search of good design and creativity,” is one of the largest design competitions in the world and perhaps the most prestigious. For the Brand & Communications competition, 24 international design experts viewed and evaluated almost 9,000 entries from around the globe.

Updating our visual identity was an effort to better align our firm’s look and feel with who we are now…

Steve JohnGlobal communications partner

The new McKinsey visual identity work has been overseen by our firm’s chief reputation officer Peter Dahlstrom and led internally by Steve, Jane, design director Elliot Cravitz, and brand communications managers Kevin Drennan and Lana Markovic, working in collaboration with brand consultancy Wolff Olins and the branding and creative agency OPX.

The new McKinsey look gets a Red Dot
The new McKinsey look gets a Red Dot

Its most prominent components feature an updated script mark, a new graphic element we call the Partnership Mark, a bespoke typeface, a high-contrast color palette, and a revamped approach to data visualization and photography.

This year’s Red Dot Award winners are invited to attend the annual awards ceremony in Berlin at the end of the year. For a refresher on the importance of good design to business, don’t miss our article, “The business value of design.”

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