Magpie Studio brings new look to Channel 4 Racing

The shift is a move to engage a younger audience with mass appeal races like the Grand National and Royal Ascot, while retaining the core audience of race enthusiasts, according to Magpie.

Magpie has worked with Channel 4 on other projects including Street Summer and 4seven and was approached directly by 4Creative for the Channel 4 Racing project.

A new identity extrudes the mother brand ‘4’ to create a horse’s head, communicating the channel brand and horse racing in one logo.

Magpie creative partner Ben Christie says, ‘Having successfully created the 4seven brand marque, we knew extrusions were a good starting point for creating a new logo based on the old. After lots of experimenting we came up with the front runner – pun intended.’

Magpie is now working with 4creative to create style guides and brand applications including a suite of patterns inspired by jockey silks, which  Christie says, ‘create a modern and vibrant set of tools that can be used on- and off-air and work within the logo.

‘The patterns tick the box of appealing to a younger audience while remaining entirely relevant to racing – avoiding alienating Channel 4 Racing’s existing audience.’

Meanwhile 4Creative is creating an on-air sting, which will be used as part of the branding. The brand will be rolled out this month by IMG Sports Media with 4Creative overseeing.