I redesigned Mac O’Clock

An unsolicited redesign for the publication

Mac O’Clock is a fantastic publication that brings together some of the best Apple-focused stories from around Medium. In this story, I’ll explain my reasoning for redesigning the publication, as well as the process of how I established a new visual identity for Mac O’Clock.

Note: This is an unsolicited redesign, and was not requested by Mac O’Clock.

Mac O’Clock’s current homepage

Why I chose to redesign Mac O’Clock

I wanted to redesign Mac O’Clock for two primary reasons:

1. Mac O’Clock is the publication I publish with most frequently.
2. Mac O’Clock is currently lacking a strong visual identity.

First of all, Mac O’Clock is the publication I publish with most frequently, and it’s unquestionably my favorite publication to read on Medium.

Second, Mac O’Clock does have a logo, but not a strong visual identity to go with it. This is the problem I set out to fix.

How I went about redesigning Mac O’Clock

Let’s jump right in.

I knew that my ultimate goal in redesigning Mac O’Clock was to establish a strong visual identity. So I started by creating a new Illustrator artboard and filling it with a bright, noticeable red color straight from the classic Apple logo.

Since that shade of red was a little too dark, I lightened it and changed the hue and saturation until I ended up with a nice, crisp red.

The shade of red I settled on as a base color

Then I added the Greek letter “mu,” the same as in the current Mac O’Clock logo. After a few tries, I found that font that matched the current logo (or at least came very close): American Typewriter.

The Greek letter “mu” in American Typewriter

I then used the letter as a clipping mask for the classic “rainbow” Apple logo, and added the stem of the Apple logo to the top of the letter. At this point I had the foundation of the old logo.

The basic form of the old Mac O’Clock logo

I changed the circle to black, added a border in a lighter shade of red, and added a shadow. Now I was getting somewhere.

The Mac O’Clock logo in dark mode, essentially

Now I just had to add some decoration around the edge to put the “clock” in “Mac O’Clock”, and volia:

The complete logo

Adding the logo text

I decided, as part of establishing a bold visual identity, that I should add text, as well.

In the same American Typewriter font, I added some shadowed text that said “Mac O’Clock.” Then I added the tagline: “The best Apple stories.” This is a slightly modified version of Mac O’Clock’s current tagline: “The best stories for Apple owners and enthusiasts,” which was too long for my purposes.

And this was the final result:

Now I just needed to duplicate it to make more formats and colors, including some color variations and the icon in a square.

Please excuse my not using layers. At all.

The final collection of assets

And here’s how it looks on the Mac O’Clock home page

That’s all, folks!

And that’s how I redesigned Mac O’Clock, my favorite publication. Thanks for reading!