Sesame Workshop Logo PNG
Over many years, the Sesame Workshop logo has changed repeatedly until it became a concise, clear image associated with a pleasant home atmosphere. How could it be otherwise if the channel’s goal is to promote family values, development, and good interpersonal relationships?
Sesame Workshop began from a 1966 observation by Lloyd Morrisett of Carnegie Corporation. He noticed how closely his young daughter watched television commercials and wondered whether the same short, bright format could teach preschool children. He shared the idea with Joan Ganz Cooney, a documentary producer at New York’s Channel 13, who then researched preschool education with funding from Carnegie.
On 20 May 1968, Cooney and Morrisett founded the nonprofit Children’s Television Workshop. Harvard professor Gerald Lesser helped develop its research method, later known as the CTW model, in which producers worked with educators and child development experts throughout the production process. Funding came from sources including the US Department of Education, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Ford Foundation.
Sesame Street premiered on National Educational Television on 10 November 1969. Its structure combined animation, live-action scenes, and puppet segments centered on letters, numbers, and social skills. Jim Henson’s Muppets, including Big Bird, Bert and Ernie, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch, became central after test screenings showed children responded strongly to them. The show used a multicultural cast and focused on children from lower-income urban families.
CTW later produced The Electric Company in 1971, 3-2-1 Contact in 1980, Square One TV in 1987, and Ghostwriter in 1992. Licensing helped stabilize finances by 1985-1986, while international versions spread through local partnerships. In 1999, CTW co-founded Noggin with MTV Networks, then sold its stake to Viacom in 2002. On 5 June 2000, it became the Sesame Workshop. In 2015, it partnered with HBO, and in 2020, Sesame Street moved to HBO Max with delayed PBS broadcasts.
Meaning and History
The project was initially not large-scale, so it did not aim to acquire a personal logo. The founders only needed an impressive screensaver for the Sesame Street TV series for which it was created. However, over time, the owners considered continuing the program and expanding the list of broadcasts that required an entire TV channel. This fact explains the emblem’s later appearance: the company was established in 1968, and the logo appeared in 1969. The studio was formerly known as the Children’s Television Workshop, or CTW for short. The current name was adopted in the summer of 2000, after which the management redesigned the emblem.
What is Sesame Workshop?
Sesame Workshop is a nonprofit organization that owns the eponymous television channel, which airs children’s educational programs. It was founded in 1968 by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett, who had spent two years beforehand studying methods of teaching preschoolers, their psychology, and how they assimilate knowledge. The result of their painstaking labor was the TV series Sesame Street, for which they created their own thematic channel. Its headquarters are located in New York.
1969 – 1983
Although the logo is text-based and consists of the organization’s name, it is backed by an amazing bas-relief in an old-fashioned style. It’s used to confirm that this workshop carries out manual labor, producing a unique product with no analogs. The simple inscription, stylized as a child’s wall “painting,” testifies to the project’s playful nature. The letters look as though they were painted with a brush on a fence, as confirmed by uneven lines, carelessness, and streaks. Yet, the architectural element looks very solid. It takes the form of a horizontal scroll, behind which a human (at the top) and an animal (at the bottom) peek out.
1975 – 1978
In this version of visual identity, text predominates. The inscription is made in an old-fashioned calligraphic font. The glyphs’ curves and elongated legs add a personal touch of magic. The letters are unconnected, black, thin, and are in lowercase, except for the first symbols, which, according to grammar, are preserved as capital letters.
1978 – 1983
This symbol is a modernized abbreviation of the TV channel’s name. It looks like a monogram composed of the lowercase letters “c,” “t,” and “w.” The first letter is positioned diagonally; the second and third are horizontal. All glyphs are massive, super bold, geometric, and black. They have straight lines, precise angles, and smooth edges. In this way, the educational TV channel wanted to create a serious atmosphere.
1983 – 1997
The word “logo” consists of a three-level uppercase inscription. The title is set in an original font and is aligned on both sides. The letters represent a harmonious combination of smooth curves and proportional angles. The separating comma at the top has a teardrop shape; “E” resembles a Ukrainian “Є”; and “W” overlaps the neighboring “O.” Milton Glaser created this emblem.
1997 – 2000
The media organization’s leadership decided to return to the children’s style, cheerful and relaxed. They chose a bright emblem with a semi-circle in a double frame for this. In the center of the yellow background is the abbreviation “CTW.” The red letters are outlined with black trim. They are semi-bold, uppercase, and sans-serif. Above the composition, in a semi-circle, is the full name of the TV channel, rendered in thin glyphs. The authors of this idea are the agency Pittard Sullivan and the design studio Pentagram.
1999
The logo appears as an inscription styled like children’s doodles, laid out by an uncertain hand on a white sheet. It reads “CTW family workshop,” indicating that educational programs now have a family-oriented aspect to broaden their audience. The abbreviation is colored in carrot-red, while the rest is in black.
2000 – 2007
In 2000, a significant step occurred: the media company adopted its current name. In the new logo, it is written as a single word on a single line. To differentiate the two words, they are colored differently: “sesame” in green and “workshop” in blue. Above them is a geometrically disproportionate house, as if drawn by a small child. This is how the designers visualized the concept of “family.” And to indicate that a future genius grows within these walls, they added a yellow star with a zigzag tail.
2007 – 2018
The house and star disappeared from the logo. The primary focus now is on the word “sesameworkshop,” written in lowercase letters and colored in two shades of green.
2018 – today
The emblem resembles the Sesame Street show’s sign, where the Sesame Workshop started. The text is split into two lines and placed between two lines: a straight bottom one and a convex top one.
Font and Colors
The Sesame Street logos use various fonts, including Busorama, Interstate Bold, Helvetica, and DIN Round Pro Bold. The color palette is also diverse: black, red, blue, gray, yellow, and various shades of green.