COLLINS’ refresh of Medium keeps one eye on the future and the other on their editorial origins

Open writing platform Medium aims to be the model for contemporary digital publishing, already drawing 170 million readers, with authors ranging from Chrissy Teigen to The Atlantic and topics from climate change to JavaScript and AOC to Kim K. With this in mind, the expectations for a refresh of Medium’s identity and digital presence were always going to be high – but given the task, has proved no problem for New York and San Francisco-based design company COLLINS. “Our teams’ ambition, both Medium and COLLINS, was to craft an evolution for Medium, not a complete departure from the more familiar elements of their existing identity,” George Lavender, Senior Designer at COLLINS explains. Designing with the ever-growing audience in mind due to Medium’s VP of Marketing Karene Tropen excelling in her role, it was necessary to develop a more adaptive and compelling identity and website to cope with the audience expansion. “For where they’re now going,” Lavender explains, “they required a system that will be far more flexible and dynamic on one hand, yet constant and evergreen on the other,” noting that their progression needed to “represent Medium right now and as it evolves into the future.”