Oxygen

Capitalizing on a strong ratings boost surrounding their weekday “Crime Time” marathons, Oxygen sought to rebrand themselves as a modern true crime channel that would resonate with their predominantly female audience. To differentiate the brand from other networks, we steered away from tired crime clichés and took a more nuanced approach to the genre. The result is a sensory and emotional experience that focuses on motive and intrigue.

The design system mirrors the complex process of untangling real-life criminal cases, drawing inspiration from newspaper clippings and police reports. Close cropping, negative space, and off-kilter alignments keep viewers on edge and actively engaged. Driven by a choppy animation style, deliberate omissions and reveals of design elements create a disturbing, unsettled atmosphere to reinforce emphasis on psychological motive. Automated toolkits streamline the process of updating and generating new collateral to flex the brand messaging.

We developed a series of comprehensive style guides for Oxygen that outline best practices for building evocative narratives across platforms and out-of-home. Automated toolkits help streamline the process for internal teams’ non-stop generation of new on-air, social media and promo content— building off of and personifying the brand’s striking, inquisitive point of view. Finally, an in-depth social strategy helped connect Oxygen’s content and talent to the wider true crime conversation, compelling new online audiences to get in on the mystery.

Our sound partners YouTooCanWoo created layers of tactile sound effects and clipped audio—at once familiar but ambiguous—to keep the viewer guessing and complement the fractious nature of the brand’s visual elements.