Historic Newspapers

Historic Newspapers had been in operation for 20 years, they had been through multiple rebrands and name changes. The identity felt old and stuffy and was focused on older audiences and sports. Wonderbly, Children's book publisher of the year acquired HN and they asked us to totally transform the brand, find new audiences, update their print on demand books (full of newspaper headlines) and consider how they package and sell their original newspapers offer. We had to get the whole company onboard with the changes and update every aspect of the strategy, brand and experience.

A complete program of work including immersion, strategy, identity, and digital design. We developed the brand strategy, identity, book design system, packaging, catalogue system, art direction, campaign toolkit and eCommerce experience.With HN we created an online cover design system that enabled the immediate creation of new print on demand books that could be launched on their website within hours (compared to months). We transformed the brand to focus on new broader audiences and demographics into new passion areas of arts, music, entertainment and sports. We created a brand that worked globally, enabling them to roll out internationally.

Initial beta tests of the new brand and covers sold 12x as many books in a single month. This encouraged the team to go all in and transform every part of the brand. The brand saw massive growth, becoming the parent brand Wonderbly's most successful product. They continue to grow and the team achieved a 250% increase above the ambitious target they had set for the Christmas period in 2025.Off the back of the success of Historic Newspapers AND their parent company Wonderbly (Lovework did their rebrand too), they were acquired by Penguin Random House.

Comprehensive redesign of brand, business model, target audiences, product, packaging, eCommerce site.Unique Print on demand Cover design system, that enabled teams to easily create and launch new products (in hours instead of months) .Introduced new internal design system for creating new products, that immediately update on website with smart images, so teams can create a new POD product within hours and have it on the website with beautiful visuals – and the product ready to print globally. That means that they can respond to emerging trends and news from social media and launch 'old news' products that immediately resonate with audiences.