DC Super Heroes Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash and Cyborg join forces in “Justice League,” the blockbuster from DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Pictures. Pentagram designed the identity for the film, building on the DC brand heritage to create a bold logotype that captures the spirit of this team of iconic characters.
Like the Super Heroes, the identity is designed to be powerful, contemporary and timeless. To develop the logotype, the designers researched the complete run of the Justice League comic book series, which originally debuted in 1960, and the new identity references typography from a classic issue. The letterforms of the wordmark feature dynamic cuts, dramatic angles and shapes that evoke the Super Heroes and their symbols.
The logotype stacks the Justice League name, with the letters streamlined and closely spaced to fit in the monumental rectangular shape, echoing the movie’s story of coming together to form a tight, cohesive unit. A star between the “I” and the “C” adds an extra bit of heroism. A “JL” monogram set in a shield was also created for an insignia-like secondary logo. The graphic simplicity of the identity allows it to handle a variety of treatments, including textured, metal or dimensional forms.
The logo’s distinctive typography was expanded to a custom typeface, Justice League Super Condensed, designed in collaboration with Jeremy Mickel. The font is used throughout the film’s promotional campaign, appearing in ads, posters and billboards to create an immersive look and feel for the world of the League. (The font also works well in other languages; a cyrillic alphabet was developed for international audiences.)
The identity complements the DC logo previously designed by Pentagram, which is now used in a lockup with the Justice League wordmark, a first for the DC brand.
