ACADMEY OF CANADIAN CINEMA & TELEVISION REBRAND
Client
Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television
Creative Direction & Design
Nick Coyle
Deliverables
New Creative Guide · New Logo
Disciplines
Brand Identity · Logo Design · Web Design
Scope
All Platforms
Year
2021
OVERVIEW
Rebranding a national institution means building something that can carry a legacy and still feel genuinely new.
The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television is the country's foremost organization celebrating excellence in film, television, and digital media. After years of incremental updates, the institution needed a comprehensive visual overhaul, one that could carry the Academy's authority into the modern era while resonating with a new generation of Canadian creators. As Design Lead, Nick Coyle Creative reimagined the Academy's visual world from the ground up. This wasn't a logo refresh or a palette swap, it was an entirely new design language governing everything from the annual Canadian Screen Awards broadcast to social content, website redesign, print materials, sub-brand programmes, and motion assets. The rebrand needed to feel prestigious without being stale. Contemporary without losing authority. The result was a modular identity system built to flex across every platform the Academy touches and to sustain consistent quality for years to come.
A Legacy to Honour
The Academy has decades of history and the trust of Canada's entire screen industry. The new identity needed to signal genuine transformation without alienating the creative community the organisation exists to serve. There was no room for a rebrand that felt like a misstep.
Institutional Scale & Complexity
The Academy isn't a single brand, it's an ecosystem. Canadian Screen Awards, Academy Talks, Members Lounge, Women Directors Program, Prism Prize, and more. Each programme needed its own visual identity while remaining unmistakably part of the same family.
Platform Diversity
From a 4K broadcast title card to an Instagram story to a printed programme to a homepage banner, the identity needed to remain coherent and impactful across radically different formats, aspect ratios, and contexts. A rigid system would break, and loose one would lose coherence.
Continuous Delivery
Unlike a one-time project, this was an ongoing creative partnership. New campaigns needed to be produced continuously demanding a design system robust enough to fuel rapid, high-quality output year after year without the identity degrading.
THE CHALLENGE
ORIGINAL BRANDING
System thinking at institutional scale. Every decision was made with the full system in mind, not just how a single asset would look, but how the design language would hold up across years of continuous output, multiple sub-brands, and every platform the Academy operates on.
Identity Architecture
Before a single asset was designed, a comprehensive Design Guidelines document was established defining the colour system, typographic hierarchy, motion principles, and compositional grammar. This became the single source of truth for all downstream production.
Sub-Brand System
Multiple creative directions were explored to pressure-test the brief. The chosen direction; bold, cinematic, and rooted in a sense of spectacle, was developed into a full visual language that could express itself equally across a 16:9 broadcast frame and a 4×5 social crop.
THE APPROACH
Website Redesign
Applying the visual system across the homepage, events, member sections, and the Canadian Screen Awards hub. The goal was clarity, prestige, and ease of use for a diverse audience spanning industry professionals, members, and the general public.
Ongoing Creative Direction
Rather than a one-time handoff, this was a continuous creative partnership. Campaigns, social series, event graphics, broadcast assets, and print materials were produced throughout the year maintaining the integrity of the rebrand at every touchpoint, season after season, for three consecutive years.
The root of the rebrand was Academy logo. The old logo was almost identical to the Academy logo both having the CSA statue in it as it was the bread & butter of the Acadmey. We wanted to keep it clean and legible as there is a lot of wording included. Although it looks simple there many hurdles regarding layout and representation of French and English.
Bi-Lingual logo with a lot of words can be a challenge to make look balanced
The CA in the Academy was highlighted to stand for CA the short form for Canada.
Bi-Lingual logo with a lot of words can be a challenge to make look balanced
LOGO REDESIGN
CREATIVE GUIDELINES
THE WEBSITE MADE THE REBRAND COME ALIVE
The redesign of academy.ca was the most visible expression of the new identity system bringing together the updated typographic language, colour palette, and information architecture under one roof. The site needed to serve members, press, industry professionals, and the general public simultaneously. A bold editorial homepage, restructured navigation, and a modular content system gave the Academy the flexibility to spotlight the Canadian Screen Awards, Academy Talks, membership, and the Prism Prize all within a single, coherent digital experience.
Navigation
Restructured for members, press & the public
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Visual System
Full brand language across all page templates
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Awards Hub
CSA nominees, schedule & results unified
ACADEMY PROGRAMMING
Academy Talks
A year-round professional development series, Academy Talks events feature moderated panels and special guest speakers sharing insight on their creative strategies, innovative business approaches, and industry leadership.
Members Lounge
Programming and events during the Canadian Screen Week exclusive to Academy members and industry folks.
Directors Program for Women
The Canadian Academy Directors Program for Women was designed to bolster the professional development of Canadian directors by providing hands-on experience in a wide range of activities, including an exclusive professional development symposium, a six-part online learning module, and curated on-set director observer placements with established production companies and high-profile directors.
Executive Residency
The Executive Residency Program is a Canadian Academy initiative dedicated to providing industry access for mid-career professionals who identify as Black, Indigenous, or persons of colour, in order to influence a change in the next generation of executives and decision makers.
Where to Watch
The Where to Watch initiative, supported by Hollywood Suite, spotlights diverse Canadian content available to be streamed online, shedding new light on remarkable films, television shows, and digital media.
Screen Share
An ongoing screening series showcasing pre-releases and premieres from the best in world film and television. Screenings are free and exclusive to Academy members.
WHAT WAS DELIEVERED
Brand Identity System Colour · Typography · Logo Usage · Spatial Rules
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Design Guidelines Document Creative constitution for all teams & partners
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Sub-Brand Architecture Academy Talks · Members Lounge · Women Directors Program · Where to Watch
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Website Redesign — academy.ca Visual Templates · CSA Hub
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Broadcast Graphics Title Cards · Nominee Packages · Lower Thirds
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Social Content System Static · Motion · Multi-format
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Motion Design Animated bumpers · Logo reveals · Event openers
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Print Collateral Event programmes · Press materials · Certificates
CONCLUSION
A new identity built to last
The Academy rebrand wasn't a single deliverable, it was the foundation of a long-term creative partnership. Every asset reinforced the new visual language, every season adding depth and coherence to an identity system designed to grow with the institution. Three years in, the work still holds.
Complete visual identity built from scratch — covering every platform from broadcast to social to print.
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academy.ca fully redesigned — with a new information architecture and brand identity applied across all page templates.
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5+ sub-brand programmes — Academy Talks, Members Lounge, Women Directors Program, & more. Each with a distinct but connected visual identity.
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Design Guidelines document delivered as a living creative constitution for all teams and external partners.
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3 consecutive years as design lead — a testament to a creative partnership built on trust, quality, and a shared long-term vision.
© NICK COYLE CREATIVE. COPYRIGHT 2026