Heritage Radio Network (HRN) is the world’s pioneer food radio station. The nonprofit podcast network broadcasts 40 shows each week on food-related topics that cover everything from sustainable agriculture, food technology and the global food supply to home cooking, personal nutrition and wellness, and restaurants and dining. Pentagram has designed a new brand identity and website for HRN that help raise its profile and provide a cohesive visual system for its programming.
Founded in 2009, HRN was inspired by the Slow Food Movement and operates out of two recycled shipping containers in the backyard of the celebrated Roberta’s Pizza in Brooklyn. The network’s shows are accessible via Stitcher, Apple Podcasts and other platforms, as well as on its own website, which hosts a library of over 15,000 episodes. HRN needed an identity that would enable it to visually “own” its podcasts across various platforms and at the same time allow the individual programs to shine.
The new identity highlights the HRN acronym like the call letters of a radio station and establishes a recognizable brand across the network’s content. Deliberately neutral, the logo eschews food related imagery to accommodate the wide variety of programming.
The mark plays with positive and negative, with an invisible “R” centered between the strong “H” and “N.” The top of the “H” is chipped with a negative serif from the “R,” creating a distinctive angle that serves as a recurring graphic motif across the brand.
The logo’s streamlined look extends to a website design that is clean, clear and easy to navigate as listeners tune in and search the archives. The designers developed brand guidelines for the podcast covers that maintain the existing graphic identities of the individual shows but introduces a bright and contemporary color palette. The simplicity of the site sets off the diversity of programming and allows the shows to stand out.
