Connecticut station marks 75 years with angular logo

WTNH is marking its upcoming 75th anniversary with a logo design and what it calls a “diamond jubilee.”

The ABC affiliation owned by Nexstar Media Group that serves New HavenHartford, Connecticut, will hit its 75th birthday June 15, 2023, having gone on the air one that date in 1948.

Because WTNH brands under the channel number “8,” there isn’t a great way to tie that together with “75,” so the station created a separate iteration of “75” that is being displayed next to its normal logo (though it will be interesting to see the station’s 80th anniversary look in five years).

The logo features the number “7” with the neighboring “5” butting up against the angled downstroke of the former. The ends of both the “7” and “5” get matching angles and the word “Years” set in bold Montserrat beneath it.

The design could be seen as a bit of an odd choice given that the station doesn’t use angled elements in its on-air graphics or any other look and its primary logo is a bold, non-italic Helvetica, including its rather uninspired “8” icon.

That said, it’s also worth noting that the strong diagonal of the “7” likely drove at least some of the design direction, but it’s also a bit odd to see the top horizontal stroke of the “7” not running just a bit wider to both match the top portion of the “5” and also make it just a bit more obvious it’s not a “1.”

Setting “years” in Montserrat is also a bit odd since it creates a bit of an odd mix of sans serifs when both logos are used in conjunction with each other, though Montserrat is used in other parts of the station’s graphics package alongside FF Din.

Back in 2010, WTNH became one of many stations to drop their more distinctive logo designs in favor of what was likely meant to be cleaner and simplified.

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Old WTNH logo that it dropped in 2010 that also included its ‘News Channel’ branding.

Unfortunately, this meant many stations lost their distinctive designs, particularly in the numeral department.

Ironically, the “75” for WTNH appears to have taken the approach of modifying a typeface significantly to create a distinct look. The prominent curved part of the “5,” meanwhile, could be viewed as a circle, which has some connections to the “S” in “News” and the “8” icon, though both of these glyphs feature slightly flattened paths. 

Viewed another way, the “5” also has some similarities to the rounded look found in the ABC globe logo.

For years, TV station numbers were viewed as such a key part of its identity, that many numbers were either originally drawn by hand and then traced or featured modifications such as adjusting width, height and strokes. 

While some of these looks were dated and certainly could have used an update, it also started to create a bit of a generic look at many stations across the country.