In April, in that way French people seem to have of describing things in English more eloquently than most native English speakers can, EuroNews CEO Michael Peters summed up the goal of his Paris-based company’s new endeavor, AfricaNews.

“One of the problems is that media organizations have only one goal: to impose their own perspective,” he said during a televised press conference heralding the network’s broadcast launch. “I think it should be the contrary. I think media organizations like us are here to empower the people.”

Initiated in 2012, AfricaNews was years in the making as it set about establishing an infrastructure, presence and brand in a part of the world where stability and freedom of the press are not always guaranteed. But rather than dance around such potential drawbacks, EuroNews has plunged into the heart of the continent it is serving, setting up the AfricaNews headquarters in Brazzaville, the capital city of the Republic of the Congo, and never looking back.

“The first thing was that we wanted to work with Africans on this project,” said Gregory Samak, marketing director at EuroNews. “We wanted the channel to look and feel African. Even the stories and content are made by Africans, so it was very important for us that the design would come from there and not from Europe or America.”

Samak’s team, he said, “searched a long time, trying to spot the best agencies” in Africa before they finally chose Johannesburg-based Monarchy for the job, a company with a strong track record designing network brands at home and beyond. “Their proposal was mind-blowing,” he continued, for the way it tapped into the soul of the continent.”

Monarchy’s AfricaNews pitch had “two initial concepts,” said Katlego Baaitse, a creative director for the agency. One was very “modern and slick” with a “traditional news-oriented” look and feel, and lots of “light flares and plexes” in the graphics. The other concept “was kind of our wild card” with “big titles, this glass moving across” and most importantly, a palette of “deep yellow and orange and ochre and greens, very natural colors but warm and welcoming.”

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Though the brand ultimately combines aspects of both concepts, it was the color scheme that first raised Samak’s eyebrows. Pre-existing African news channels, he explained, “are based on the western approach.” In America and Europe, for instance, the general tone of most channels is “red or blue, and they are very emphatic and the music is very heroic. We didn’t want that in Africa.”

Africa, Samak continued, is “the cradle of mankind and the cradle of the future,” a deep, impossibly complicated collective consciousness that required a look and feel far more nuanced than typical news outlets’ bombast and bravado.

“That was why we were very excited [by Monarchy’s pitch],” he said. “Their idea was not a conventional news channel, not a copy of BBC or CNN or whatever. It was genuine… the main color was coming from the land, the earth… they found the perfect range of colors, a yellow or red land full of iron. To me that is Africa… that beautiful yellow.”

Like the gentle yet powerful light of dawn, Monarchy’s proposal encapsulated the brand’s defining phrase: “Africa Rising.” It’s the “idea of showing another face of Africa, which is not about disease or wars” Samak said. Instead, it’s about digging beneath the continent’s troubled reputation to examine and celebrate the lives and stories of its people.

“Often when emulating Africa, people want to create something a little too much to the tribal side or the cultural side,” added Baaitse. “What was nice with AfricaNews was we got to showcase different parts of Africa.”

In fact, the number of parts showcased might have exceeded even Monarchy’s expectations. It turned out that heading up design on the new channel entailed significantly more than the standard array of channel IDs, bumpers, templates, lower thirds and various other on-screen graphics.

“All their content they generate themselves,” Baaitse said. “They don’t buy any content. They literally create every single thing that you see.”

Which meant that in addition to the overall network brand, “they also had completely separate brands and shows that they needed packages for, and [these] had to look absolutely nothing like AfricaNews itself.”

Looking at Monarchy’s AfricaNews sizzle above, you can feel those myriad elements jostling for position, though there is a method to it all that unites the channel in practice. The “mother brand,” as Baaitse described it, has a range of programming sub-brands, including categories such as Sport and Business. Based on the model started by parent company EuroNews, each sub-brand deviates from the channel’s overall summery palette to flash its own, respective color scheme, such as green for Sport or blue for Business. Connecting it all, a framing device of shifting panels of 3D glass transitions viewers in and out of shows and across the channel.

The imagery for each show package within a sub-brand is unique to itself, and each sub-brand might have “four or five or maybe six shows relating to [it],” Baaitse said. And then there are shows on the network that don’t fall under the sub-brands at all, such as the culture show Timeout Africa. These, too, required packages from Monarchy. Baaitse likened the process to rebranding, say, “HBO, and on top of that, you have to do the imaging and the titles for True Detective.” Except multiply those True Detective titles you’re designing by dozens, because all told, Baaitse estimated that Monarchy produced “roughly 23 opens and 23 closes for the channel and its content.” Which was, remember, in addition to creating the overarching AfricaNews mother brand at the core of it all.

“Probably the biggest challenge in there was to stay creative,” Baaitse said. “They weren’t subletting. They weren’t having other companies do different opens. We were doing so much of the channel… At times there is no thread and at times it was a bit of a worry, but watching it play out, it works really well because if you watch the channel, there’s so much of the mother brand that the other bit barely comes out.” The nice thing about news channels “from a branding perspective,” he continued, is that unlike entertainment networks, choice graphical bits from the mother brand “run across the screen the whole time. The channel is always branded with AfricaNews colors. The brand is always there.”

While designing all those elements was challenging for Monarchy, Baaitse was ultimately grateful for the creative opportunities the project afforded.

“We got to do some very cool stuff,” he said. “To keep everything fresh and different we would always have to mix it up.”

The team even got to design graphics customized for smartphones, via an innovative show called Story Hunters, which aims to cull as much programming as possible from viewers who have downloaded the show’s app. The endeavor is part of a much broader product-based initiative wherein a phone has been designed specifically for optimal mobile consumption of AfricaNews content.

“It’s designed internally to be able to give to people the news as soon as possible,” said Samak. “This phone is cheap and affordable and can be viewed in real time.”

Though not available to consumers just yet, the phone will provide users with a live AfricaNews stream at levels of bandwidth much lower than the standard 4G or 5G, “taking into account that often in Africa you don’t have a powerful network everywhere,” Samak continued. “That was the idea, to make a phone that could connect Africans to news in an affordable way.”

“There is such a huge market already in Africa because there is so much you can do,” Baaitse said. “You can tell stories and do so much that people aren’t necessarily used to seeing. It doesn’t have to be about war. It can be about love. We’re really excited to be part of that.”

CREDITS

Pitch Design

Creative Director: Shannon Davis

Design: Louise Maselela

Design: Derrick Pitts

3D, 2D: Pascal Martin

3D: Gavin Jeoffreys

Monarchy

Executive Creative Director: Nicci Hattingh

Creative Director: Katlego Baaitse

Design Director: Katlego Baaitse

Directors: Jean-Yves Martin/ Katlego Baaitse

Editors: Carla Pels-Bekker/ Jean-Yves Martin

Animators: Victor Hugo/ Pascal Martin/ Renzo Radar/ Gavin Joeffreys/ Neo Morulane

Music: Jake Odendaal - Malvern Productions

Producer: Shaniel Mjekevu

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