https://the-brandidentity.com/features Graphic and brand design projects, interviews, and insights. http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification python-feedgen en Thu, 29 Oct 2026 19:51:55 +0000 https://the-brandidentity.com/project/est%C3%BAdio-017s-identity-for-garde-refuses-to-tie-itself-to-one-logo Garde is a non-profit foundation for contemporary art, fashion and cinema, based in Berlin and started by a collective of anonymous independent artists. Brazilian and Portuguese studio Estúdio 017 created its brand strategy, verbal identity, visual identity and editorial system ahead of its launch. https://the-brandidentity.com/project/est%C3%BAdio-017s-identity-for-garde-refuses-to-tie-itself-to-one-logo project Thu, 29 Oct 2026 03:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/interview/seven-years-then-burnout-why-nika-belskaya-has-quit-branding Nika Belskaya has quit designing identities for clients to focus on her work as an artist through Vivid Cereal, her creative practice. Branding was meant to be a temporary financial safety net while she built her art, but seven years went by. The more clients she took on, the less time was left for anything else. In January 2026, she planned a slow shift away from client work, but financial fears had her saying yes to every commercial offer. By October, she was burned out. She announced her exit in her Substack piece ‘I’m Quitting Branding.’ She is also moving from Tbilisi to Berlin, where she sees more opportunities as an artist. In this interview, the designer behind Vivid Cereal talks about why she went public before landing anywhere safe and what she would say to designers who feel their vision fading through client work. https://the-brandidentity.com/interview/seven-years-then-burnout-why-nika-belskaya-has-quit-branding interview Thu, 29 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/project/local-feel-one-look-the-collected-works-rebrands-shuttle-firm-circuit Circuit is an on-demand electric shuttle service that works with cities to help people get around, often for free, mostly connecting them with local businesses, transit hubs and other nearby destinations. Founded by Alexander Esposito and James Mirras, it started in the Hamptons in 2011 and now runs in more than 50 US cities, where it has given more than 10 million rides – more than 16,000 a month in San Diego alone. New York City and New Orleans-based design studio The Collected Works was commissioned to rebrand Circuit, working across the identity, out-of-home, web, vehicle wraps, 3D, motion and copywriting. https://the-brandidentity.com/project/local-feel-one-look-the-collected-works-rebrands-shuttle-firm-circuit project Thu, 29 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/project/the-new-york-times-turns-175-with-an-identity-events-and-a-campaign For its 175th anniversary, The New York Times created a custom 175 mark and identity system to use across editorial, opinion, advertising, events and marketing. The anniversary programme also included a celebration and exhibition at Spring Studios, plus a social campaign, film series, photojournalism tour of university campuses and an identity for The Times’s NYC Marathon team. Creative Director Jessi Brattengeier led the work alongside The Times’s in-house Culture and Comms Design team and a roster of select partners. https://the-brandidentity.com/project/the-new-york-times-turns-175-with-an-identity-events-and-a-campaign project Wed, 28 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/project/microsofts-identity-for-copilot-positions-it-as-a-tool-for-work Microsoft has spent 50 years building the tools people use to work. So, when redesigning Copilot’s identity, the team began by asking what distinctly Microsoft point of view on work it should express. Microsoft’s in-house teams led the redesign – bringing in COLLINS to explore the mark and Koto to help expand it into the wider identity – from imagery and colour to composition and product representations. https://the-brandidentity.com/project/microsofts-identity-for-copilot-positions-it-as-a-tool-for-work project Tue, 27 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/project/eder-anaya-makes-inheriteds-ep-cover-a-microsite-you-can-investigate Inherited is a deathcore band, whose debut EP – Me, Myself & Sam – features three songs that each refer to a different known serial killer. Eder Anaya – vocalist and creative art director – conceived its release as an investigation in which the audience works out the character behind each song. The clues are spread across social media and a promotional film, and lead to an interactive microsite that is also the album cover. https://the-brandidentity.com/project/eder-anaya-makes-inheriteds-ep-cover-a-microsite-you-can-investigate project Mon, 26 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/project/saint-urbains-masani-pizza-identity-celebrates-the-family-that-owns-it Lillian Pizzeria had been an institution in Forest Hills, Queens, since 1972, and Mike Chau grew up going there with his family for Friday night dinner. He later moved back to Forest Hills and kept going to Lillian with his own children. A New York food personality, Chau has spent more than a decade documenting the city’s restaurants and runs two Instagram accounts: his personal @mikejchau and @foodbabyny, which is about New York City and his children. In 2026, he and his wife, Alexandra, bought the restaurant and renamed it as Masani Pizza, combining the names of their three children, Matty, Sammy and Nicky. https://the-brandidentity.com/project/saint-urbains-masani-pizza-identity-celebrates-the-family-that-owns-it project Mon, 26 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/interview/michael-mason-launches-cadran-as-a-communication-arts-studio Michael Mason has launched CADRAN, a branding and communication arts studio combining strategy and craft on the belief that “everything communicates something”. He decided to set up the London-based studio after years working with agencies including Pentagram, Mother and ManvsMachine, and a recent tenure as Creative Director at Bold Scandinavia. The studio’s name comes from the French word for a dial, watch-face, or control knob – a nod to precision, system-first solutions and technology as a tool. In this conversation, we talk about why now felt like the right time to build something new, why there is no one right way to make creative work, and why a stable, sustainable business is the goal. https://the-brandidentity.com/interview/michael-mason-launches-cadran-as-a-communication-arts-studio interview Fri, 23 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/project/why-maniac-studio-put-a-cat-at-the-centre-of-the-pagodas-identity The Pagoda is a riverside café in Chiang Mai, Thailand, across from a historic pagoda. Mexican design agency Maniac Studio was commissioned to redesign its identity, in part in response to a concern founder Pimpawan Laprabang shared with the studio. “Many tourists visited the café alone and often experienced a sense of melancholy, or saw being alone as something negative,” Maniac Studio’s Creative Director Andrés Domínguez and Design Lead Andrea Flores tell us. Laprabang wanted to “bring more charm, soul and character to the brand without making it feel overly playful or gimmicky,” they add. https://the-brandidentity.com/project/why-maniac-studio-put-a-cat-at-the-centre-of-the-pagodas-identity project Fri, 23 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/project/n2-albiinos-vuoden-huiput-identity-expands-on-the-craftsmanship-theme Founded by designers in 1980, Vuoden Huiput is an annual design competition run by Grafia, the Association of Visual Communication Designers in Finland. Every year, Grafia invites one agency to design the competition’s identity around its pyramid emblem. For the 2025 edition, whose winners were celebrated at a gala in spring 2026, the invitation went to Helsinki-based brand and marketing agency N2 Albiino, which treated creativity as a metamorphosis and let the familiar pyramid break apart. https://the-brandidentity.com/project/n2-albiinos-vuoden-huiput-identity-expands-on-the-craftsmanship-theme project Thu, 22 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/interview/10-years-in-jac-and-is-rethinking-what-growth-means-as-a-brand-partner JAC AND works across strategy and creative execution in equal measure with a core team of two, including founder Jacinta Lippold and a little black book of specialists brought in project by project. Alongside the design work, the Melbourne-based brand partner coaches its clients’ staff and writes their draft emails, because for Lippold, brand touches every part of a business. After growing the team the conventional way, she began to question whether headcount was the right measure of success. In our conversation, 10 years in, she talks about what being a brand partner actually means, the value of outside views and her vision of JAC AND as “the good table at the wedding.” Rohan Trollope, founder of strategy and writing studio Letterform, and Coco Flip’s Co-founder Kate Stokes add a collaborator’s and a client’s perspective. https://the-brandidentity.com/interview/10-years-in-jac-and-is-rethinking-what-growth-means-as-a-brand-partner interview Thu, 22 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/project/ancient-wisdom-modern-mark-the-identity-for-s%C5%8Dms-daily-elixir-shots SŌM is a Dutch brand of functional elixirs, and its flagship – the SŌM Power Elixir – is a daily shot for steady energy and mental clarity. It blends traditional ingredients from Colombia, including chontaduro and pitaya, with modern formulation. “The Colombian origin isn’t something we layered on at the end; it’s why the product exists,” explains Founder Laurenzo Van Mello. https://the-brandidentity.com/project/ancient-wisdom-modern-mark-the-identity-for-s%C5%8Dms-daily-elixir-shots project Wed, 21 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/interview/professional-overthinking-how-thomas-pokorn-designs-brands-with-words Strategist and copywriter Thomas Pokorn calls what he does “professional overthinking” – taking a client’s subject apart and putting it back together so that anyone can understand it. Freelance for more than a decade and based in New York since 2023, Pokorn usually works on a project from start to finish and stays for the design reviews, where the words and the design sharpen each other. In this conversation, we speak about why copywriting receives less attention than design, what separates a strategy that gets used from one left in a deck, what writing in a second language has taught him and how he knows when a line is doing its job. https://the-brandidentity.com/interview/professional-overthinking-how-thomas-pokorn-designs-brands-with-words interview Wed, 21 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/typeface/hal-typefaces-hal-casino-is-a-single-weight-serif-sans-and-mono HAL Typefaces, an independent type foundry operated by Studio HanLi, has released HAL Casino – a typeface in a single weight across five styles. The serif and sans are both available in Regular and Italic, with an accompanying Mono subfamily. All five support more than 385 languages, including Vietnamese. “We believe in designing typefaces that are accessible to as many languages as possible,” Co-founder Lucas Liccini tells us. “This approach produces high character counts and requires more work, but it makes the typefaces more versatile and user-friendly.” https://the-brandidentity.com/typeface/hal-typefaces-hal-casino-is-a-single-weight-serif-sans-and-mono typeface Tue, 20 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/interview/grafiks-nick-de-jardine-on-why-websites-matter-more-than-ever Since we last caught up in 2021, Nick de Jardine, the New Zealand-based designer and developer behind Grafik, has come to realise that, for a lot of businesses, a website is “the first place people actually experience the brand.” He has relaunched Grafik with a site built around that idea. Visitors can draw over it with 10 tools, including a piece of bread, and can submit their drawings to a public gallery where others can remix them. An experimental layer on the site lets AI agents find and use the same drawing tools. The relaunch also presents Grafik as his individual practice rather than making it look like a small studio. In this interview, he talks to us about why websites matter more than ever, how AI expands what he can realise without supplying the creative voice, and how he chooses when to switch off. https://the-brandidentity.com/interview/grafiks-nick-de-jardine-on-why-websites-matter-more-than-ever interview Tue, 20 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/interview/why-two-former-nike-creatives-set-up-free-practice-in-m%C3%A1laga-spain Free Practice makes global brand campaigns and experiences for a client list including Nike and The North Face. Co-founders Daniel Whiteneck and Adrián Mora met whilst working together in Nike’s in-house Brand Creative team in the Netherlands. Once they had decided to start a studio of their own, COVID showed them that they could likely run it from anywhere with an airport nearby, a compatible time zone and working wifi. They chose Málaga, Mora’s home city. In this conversation, they talk to us about what changed when Nike became a client, a one-night drift circuit outside Belgrade for the Air Max Dn8 and why taste can make or break a good idea. https://the-brandidentity.com/interview/why-two-former-nike-creatives-set-up-free-practice-in-m%C3%A1laga-spain interview Mon, 19 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/project/studio-hi-ho-pairs-kraft-and-butter-yellow-in-madeleines-packaging Madeleine is a Melbourne-based cultured butter maker founded by Jack Gaffney, who returned to Australia after many years living in France with a dream to make butter using traditional methods. The malaxer, a historic butter-making machine that slowly kneads, folds and works the butter, is at the centre of its process. Malaxers were once commonplace in dairies, but they largely disappeared as butter production industrialised. Madeleine’s process is deliberately slower – grass-fed Jersey cow cream from West Gippsland is fermented, batch churned in the Yarra Valley and malaxed. Each portion is paddled and shaped by hand. https://the-brandidentity.com/project/studio-hi-ho-pairs-kraft-and-butter-yellow-in-madeleines-packaging project Mon, 19 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/project/how-red-antlers-brand-helps-rovexs-robot-feel-familiar-in-hospitals Rovi, the first product from Rovex, is what the hospital logistics platform describes as the first robot built to move patients. Rovi attaches to any stretcher and moves stable patients through the hospital on its own without major changes to the building’s infrastructure. New York-based Red Antler was commissioned to create the brand strategy, identity, messaging, digital and visual design, and art direction for the company. https://the-brandidentity.com/project/how-red-antlers-brand-helps-rovexs-robot-feel-familiar-in-hospitals project Fri, 16 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/project/together-gives-clusia-a-four-petal-mark-showing-ai-and-people-at-work Clusia is a US assurance firm for companies that move money, using AI to complete the audits and independent testing that banks and fintechs are required to perform every year. Clusia’s software drafts each audit from the client’s connected systems, showing the source behind every answer, and an accredited professional then reviews and signs it. London-based design and technology agency Together was commissioned to create the identity, spanning the mark, typography, colour, photography, illustration, outdoor advertising, website and product interface. https://the-brandidentity.com/project/together-gives-clusia-a-four-petal-mark-showing-ai-and-people-at-work project Fri, 16 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity https://the-brandidentity.com/project/hochburgs-identity-for-grill-brand-flamid-draws-on-makers-marks Flamid is a brand of insulated, modular grill barrels, made by hand in a metal workshop on the Swabian Alb in Germany. Every barrel shares the same core, built around fire, and takes on a different character through its outer shell – black steel, Corten steel that changes with weather and time, or a steel gabion cage that can be filled with stone. Stuttgart-based design studio Hochburg was commissioned to create the name, positioning and identity, with a brief to make visible how precisely each barrel is engineered and how long it is built to last. https://the-brandidentity.com/project/hochburgs-identity-for-grill-brand-flamid-draws-on-makers-marks project Thu, 15 Oct 2026 02:00:00 +0000 The Brand Identity