Sesame Workshop is the name of a non-profit organization, which specializes in creating multimedia content for kids. The organization was established in 1968 and today it operates globally, producing some very popular educational programs on TV.
The Sesame Workshop visual identity is based on the logo of Sesame Street, which is very well known by kids and parents from all over the globe. So there was no need to look for something else, as the popularity of the main show is the best advertising for the educational organization.
The Sesame Workshop logo is composed of lettering, set in two levels and written in one style, and a simple yet colorful framing, repeating the street-sign. Probably the most famous address for all the children, Sesame Street, Gabe to the Workshop its iconic yellow and green colors.
The wordmark in medium gray is written in all capital letters using the mid-weight rounded sans-serif typeface, which is very similar to DIN Next Pro Rounded Medium and Nota Rounded Bold fonts with their smooth lines and edges.
The “Sesame” part of the nameplate is enlarged in order to be the same lengths with the “Workshop” lower level.
The Children’s Television Workshop logo, designed in 1969, combined a traditional and elegant crest with vignettes on the sides and figures at the bottom and top parts, with a clumsy handwritten lettering, set across it in uneven blue capitals. It was a playful badge, which at the same time looked very tender due to the chosen color palette.
Another version of the program’s badge was introduced in 1975 and stayed active for just three years. It was a very minimalistic logo at its core — just the elegant cursive lettering, written in one line, in plain black against a white background, without any framing of graphical additions.
The redesign of 1978 surprised the audience, as it was somewhat super stylish and strong for a kids’ channel. The new concept was based on a stylized geometric CTW abbreviation in thick and flat black lines against a white background. The uppercase “C” and “W” were diluted by a lowercase “T”, which overlapped the first character adding a nice ornament.
Another version of the Children’s Television Workshop visual identity was introduced in 1983 and featured a simple idea, yet a lot of elegance due to the use of a stylized Art Deco sans-serif typeface. It was a three-leveled inscription, written in black on a white background and nothing else. The logo stayed active until the end of the 1990s.
A bright and childish logo replaced the serious black-and-white banner in 1997. It was a solid yellow half-circle badge in a white frame with thin contrasting outlines. The main element here was the red uppercase “CTW” abbreviation in a thin black outline, executed in a pretty simple geometric sans-serif typeface. The logo was accompanied by an arched lettering in small red capitals.
The program was renamed CTW Family Workshop in 1999, and it was followed by a logo redesign. The badge was composed of a bold orange abbreviation written in a stylized paintbrush font and followed by the black “Family Workshop” inscription in the same style. The badge only stayed active for several months.
The very first logo for Sesame Workshop was created in 2000 and featured a pretty modest yet bright composition of a lightweight smooth sans-serif inscription in green and blue lowercase letters, placed under a geometric emblem, depicting an abstract house formed by several elements in blue, green and yellow.
The redesign of 2007 simplified the Sesame Workshop logo to a single wordmark, which was executed in the same typeface as the one from the previous version, though featured a different color palette — the two words of the insignia were written in two different shades of green, a color of growth and development.
The Sesame Workshop logo is very simple and modest, pointing on its educational, and not entertaining focus, it still looks friendly and playful due to the details of the Sesame Street visual identity. And its gray, green and yellow color palette is a reflection of growth and progress along with professionalism and a high level of its content.