A broadcaster’s app before it was a studio’s service.

The service now called Paramount+ began life under another name. English Wikipedia says CBS Corporation launched it in the United States as CBS All Access in October 2014; the article gives the launch as 28 October in its opening and as 27 October in its section on international availability, and it dates the announcement to 16 October 2014. In that early form the service was tied closely to its parent network. It carried live streams of local CBS stations alongside on-demand episodes of CBS programmes, and it grew out of the network’s existing streaming portal at CBS.com and its mobile app.

Wikipedia records that the service added original programming in 2016 and, in the following years, spread to more devices and in April 2018 to Canada, its initial market outside the United States. In Australia, where CBS then owned Network 10, a local version opened in December 2018 under the name 10 All Access. The pattern of a network name followed by “All Access” was, in other words, the brand architecture of the period: the service took its identity from the broadcaster that ran it.

That changed after CBS Corporation and Viacom merged again in 2019 to form ViacomCBS. Wikipedia says programming from Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and other Viacom networks began to move onto the service, and that ViacomCBS described the expanded offer as a “house of brands.” On 30 July 2020 the company introduced a new interface with separate hubs for its different brands and said the service would be renamed in early 2021, in part to separate it from CBS’s own platforms.

The new name was announced on 15 September 2020. Wikipedia notes that “Paramount+” already had a history inside the company: from 2017 it had been the name of a film-focused subscription service in the Nordic countries, later extended to Hungary, Latin America and Russia, and the relaunched service replaced that earlier one in several of those markets.

A mountain, a plus sign and new owners.

The relaunch took place on 4 March 2021, the date ViacomCBS had set in January. Writing for Transform magazine on 22 March 2021, Elettra Scrivo reported that ViacomCBS worked with the New York brand agency loyalkaspar on the new identity and positioning. According to that report, the agency rebuilt the peak of the Paramount mountain from the ground up as a new symbol for streaming, and set the script and the call-to-action button at the base of the mountain, where they could anchor different pieces of information.

Transform also reported that the brand elements drew on the cinematic history of the Paramount name, from theatre marquee signs to movie-poster displays. The service was given a custom typeface, Peak Sans, which the magazine said was inspired by the letterforms of the classic marquee sign. And the various blues used across the brand’s history, the article said, were unified into one vibrant shade intended to build recognition over time.

The name itself borrows the studio’s. Wikipedia says the service took its name from Paramount Pictures and was positioned as the main streaming venture of ViacomCBS, alongside the free service Pluto TV. Wikipedia records that in 2023 the premium tier absorbed the Showtime streaming service and was renamed “Paramount+ with Showtime,” and that apps for several of the company’s cable networks were discontinued at the end of January 2024 so that viewers would use Paramount+ instead.

Ownership moved again in 2025. English Wikipedia says Paramount Global and Skydance Media received approval from the Federal Communications Commission to merge on 24 July 2025 and that the merger took effect on 7 August 2025, creating a company it names Paramount Skydance Corporation; the article’s opening line gives the owner as Skydance Corporation. The company formed by that merger has owned Paramount+ since 2025. Wikipedia adds that its chief executive, David Ellison, said on 13 August 2025 that Paramount+ and Pluto TV could share technology while keeping distinct front-end identities.

Design and documentation.

A streaming service meets its audience in small rectangles before anything else. The app icon on a phone, a smart-TV home row or a set-top menu is usually the first brand surface a viewer touches, so it has to read at thumbnail size, against light and dark system themes, and next to rival tiles. Designers working at that size weigh a single letterform, a compact symbol or a short wordmark against a full logo lock-up.

The launch screen and the short ident that plays before a title do a different job. They borrow from broadcast branding: a few seconds of motion, sometimes a sound cue, that tells the viewer whose service they are inside. For designers, the useful exercise is to study how a static mark behaves once it moves, and how much of the identity survives when the animation is cut to a single frame.

Colour ownership is the third lever. A service can keep one hue across its icon, buttons, highlights and marketing, or work with a multicolour mark and decide which colour leads in each context. The guides below look at how each name, mark and palette is documented, without reproducing any of them.

A studio name carried into an app.

Paramount+ is a service whose name changed as its catalogue changed. As CBS All Access it borrowed the name and the authority of a television network. As Paramount+ it took the name of a film studio and, through the work Transform described in 2021, a mountain symbol rebuilt specifically for screens, a typeface drawn from marquee lettering and a single blue in place of several.

The plus sign turns a studio name into the name of a product. The mark has to work in very different places: on a television home screen, on a phone icon, in a sports broadcast and in the corner of a trailer. Transform’s description of the script and button sitting at the base of the mountain shows how the agency treated the logo as a frame for interface elements as well as a badge.

The identity also carries the history of its owners. CBS launched the service, ViacomCBS renamed it, the company then known as Paramount Global ran it through the Showtime merger and the closure of separate network apps, and since August 2025 it has belonged to the company created by the Paramount Global and Skydance Media merger. Each of those owners left the name in place, and Wikipedia’s account of David Ellison’s 2025 remarks describes a plan that keeps the Paramount+ front end distinct even as its technology is shared.

For a design guide, Paramount+ shows how a streaming brand can take an established studio symbol, redraw it for small screens and pair it with its own typeface and one owned colour, while the service behind it changes name, catalogue and owner. Compare it with Peacock, which also takes its name from a broadcast symbol, and Netflix, a streaming brand built around a single red. For this guide we use peak navy, signal blue and halo white with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Paramount+’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.