Neon Squid
Neon Squid is a new imprint from Macmillan Children's Publishing, creating beautiful nonfiction books for inquisitive kids (and squids). In their own words: "We believe the most amazing stories are real ones, so our books are for children who want to decipher ancient scrolls, orbit distant stars, and dive into the deepest oceans."

The brief was to create a playful, fun brand which stood out amongst other kids publishers, and didn't come across as too childish or young (their audience is in the 6–12 year old range). It had to have the flexibility to work across all digital and print medias, especially when shrunk down to a book cover or spine.

To accomplish this I created a quirky squid character whose head resembles the nib of a pen, and whose face is curious and simple (but not cute). The simplicity of the squid icon means it remains legible when shrunk down and printed at tiny sizes. It also has a sneaky "NS" hidden in its tentacles. I also created the custom wordmark, and worked on creating a colour palette, font stylings and brand assets to be used across all collateral.

To learn more about the wonderful authors and illustrators publishing work with NS, please check out their book page here. Huge thanks to Jo and the team at Macmillan for this one!
Logo for Neon Squid— a red, all caps san serif type with a wonky look, paired a geometric squid character.Showing the two typefaces used for Neon Squid branding— Laca and Prater Sans. Paired with tentacle graphics.
The squid from the logo, animated to look like it's blinking.The book "A Day in the Life: Big Cats", on a red and blue background.
Three books from the launch line-up for Neon Squid.Logo for Neon Squid— this time in light blue, on a dark blue background.
Text says "Today is World Book Day", on an orange background with blue tentacle graphics framing it.The squid from the logo, animated to look like it's tapping its tentacles.
Three phrases I hand-lettered in the style of the Neon Squid logo. They read "Meet the Illustrators", "Meet the Authors" and "New Book!".
Some custom punctuation marks and graphics I drew for Neon Squid. Includes sparkles, exclamation mark, question mark and quotation marks.A phrase I hand-lettered in the style of the Neon Squid logo. It reads "Cover Reveal!".Showing how the Neon Squid fonts, colours and tentacle graphics can work together.The book "A Day in the Life: Bugs", on a red and blue background.
Showing an upcoming book titled "The Hospital", alongside some Neon Squid fonts, colours and tentacle graphics.Neon Squid wordmark only, with a simple animation giving the letters a bit of wonky movement.