Goodbye Newshub, from the creative behind the original brand

As Newshub leaves Kiwi screens forever tonight, Ant Farac, the creative force behind the original brand, looks back at his inspiration.  

Farac, now with strategic consultancy These Guys I Know, recalls the inspiration for the original Newshub brand: the New York subway system and its streamlined approach that made sense of commuter chaos.  

“It seems a long time ago now, but travelling the New York Subway back in 2014, I was struck by the system of colours, coding and typography simplifying such a complex transport system,” he says. 

A structure to navigate the chaos of news

“This coincided with me thinking about the increasingly chaotic journey of news consumption. The subway design brought simplicity and structure – as great design should. We needed that to navigate the expected shift in news consumption, which – at the time – was rapidly shifting away from linear broadcast. 

“Newshub was designed to be channel agnostic, purposefully leaving behind the number 3. Back then we thought it would seem odd one day to think about a number on a remote.” 

The transport-influenced design emphasised the importance of off-channel navigation, focusing on creating a seamless user experience across multiple touchpoints.  

Farac also led the rebranding of TV3 to Three in 2017.  

“It makes sense from an immediate brand architecture perspective obviously (Three, Three Now, ThreeNews) but it certainly wasn’t what the original design intended or where we expected to end up, so it’s quite surreal. I’m looking forward to seeing how that comes together! 

‘Seven years of nagging’

“From day one, I really wanted to change the 3News and TV3 logos – they were rigid and difficult to work with for on-air graphics and navigation across platforms. It took me seven years of nagging to get the opportunity to change the 3 logo. And I got a lot of grief for it. It felt like the whole of New Zealand had a say, but it was worth it.” 

Farac’s work is still very much on screen – though perhaps less controversially – through These Guys I Know. 

He recently rebranded the prolific New Zealand production company South Pacific Pictures (SPP). Farac has also pulled together original team members from his previous work on iconic show Bro’Town, including producer Mario Gaoa, to deliver Heavyweight with Dave Letele for TVNZ.  

Farac’s creative work has secured These Guys I Know a finalist position in three categories at the NZ Marketing Awards creating the Star RV brand for Jucy Group. But he’s still deeply fascinated by news and its delivery.   

This interest is evident in the brand platform “Make room for Newsroom”. It was created by These Guys I Know for Newsroom, the online news provider run by Mark Jennings (ex 3News/Newshub), who Farac worked closely with, and Tim Murphy.  

“That strategy was focused on celebrating journalistic integrity, intelligence and independence. When it comes to news, I think that’s still what really matters,” says Farac.

Stuff takes over broadcasting the 6pm bulletin – with the new name ThreeNews – from Saturday.

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