The identity is the website
The brand is a wordmark sitting in a blue header bar from the site's early years. There's no symbol, so the app icon and avatars fall back to the letters "MAL".
Concept rebrand · Pop cultureUnofficial · not affiliated with MyAnimeList
MyAnimeListThe list, louder
Pop culture
MyAnimeList is twenty-plus years of people logging what they watch. "The list, louder" builds the M out of five bars (a score chart, an episode counter, a ranking) and gives the site's data the energy of a manga cover.
- Company
- MyAnimeList (unofficial concept)
- Sector
- Anime and manga database and community
- Scope
- Critique, mark, wordmark, palette, type, applications
- Status
- Self-initiated study, not a commission
01
What isn't working
MAL's data and community are its strengths. The identity hasn't kept up with either.
It looks like a database
Dense blue-and-white tables and small type make it feel like a spreadsheet of fandom rather than a place for it. Newer trackers feel friendlier, even with less data.
Twenty years, several owners, no system
Ownership has moved from CraveOnline to DeNA, Media Do and, in 2025, Gaudiy, while features like manga sales, news and streaming were bolted on. Nothing visual ties them together.
02
The idea
The list, louder
“Every list is a chart. Make it the logo.”
The M is five bars cut by one V: it reads as a letter, a score histogram, an episode counter and a ranking at once. The middle bar is Pick Pink, standing for "your pick" (the show you'd defend forever). Across the product, everything (progress, scores, seasonal ranks) is drawn with the same rounded bars, so the data becomes the visual language. Dela Gothic One brings manga-cover weight; M PLUS 1 handles UI and can run in Japanese too.
Unofficial concept · not affiliated with MyAnimeList
03
Logo
Primary lockup, the mark on its own, one-colour and reversed versions. Every file is hand-built SVG: outlined, geometric, no effects.
Primary
Reversed
Mark
One colour
Mark, reversed
One colour lockup
04
Construction
Drawn on a grid, not traced. Measurements are in grid units of the 120-unit master.
- Five bars, 18 wide with 7.5 gaps, filling a 120-unit square.
- One V cut from 18 → 60 → 102 sets every bar top, so the M is drawn by a single gesture.
- The V bottoms out at 76: deep enough to read as M at 16 px, shallow enough to keep the bars feeling like data.
- Middle bar in Pick Pink in full colour; all bars go one colour in mono use.
- Wordmark: Dela Gothic One, default spacing, baseline-aligned to the bar feet.
05
Colour
Contrast ratios are measured against white and black text, so the safe pairings are listed on each swatch.
Aa 6.6:1AA
Aa 6.7:1AA
Aa 19.0:1AA
Aa 18.3:1AA
Aa 13.3:1AA
Aa 7.4:1AA
Rough proportions in a typical layout.
06
Type
Open-licence fonts only (SIL OFL), embedded from local files.
Display
Dela Gothic One
Dela Gothic One · Regular, headlines and numbers
Fall 2026, ranked by you.
Aa Bb Cc Gg Kk Qq Rr 0123456789 & ?!
Text
M PLUS 1
M PLUS 1 · wght 400 to 800, UI and reading
Track every episode, score every season, and argue about it with people who care as much as you do.
Label
M PLUS 1 Caps
M PLUS 1 · wght 800, tracked caps for labels
Watching 12 · Completed 214
07
Usage
X is one bar width. Keep 1X clear around the mark and the lockup.
Clear space
XX
Minimum size
- Lockup
- 140 px wide · 30 mm.
- Mark
- 16 px · 4 mm. Below 24 px use the one-colour mark (no pink bar).
08
Applications
Every mockup is built for this study and labelled as an unofficial concept. Product names, people and content shown are invented.
Next case study
arXiv
[cite] · unofficial concept
