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The Newsletter 131
Projects, jobs, mockups, books and more
Elliott Moody
July 15, 2024
Case studies
A subtly sensual wordmark
Located in the cities of São Paulo, Brazil, and New York City, USA, Bossa Furniture is carefully preserving Brazil’s design heritage through the curation, documentation and conservation of its historical furniture collection. As a vintage and contemporary design gallery and furniture store, they were in need of a rebrand that underlined their purpose, showcasing their approach to curation and documentation alongside their subsidiary brands.
Tasked with the project, São Paulo-based creative direction and design studio U.I.WD. took inspiration from the Brazilian Modernism movement, drawing upon popular and vernacular cultural elements to influence everything from type selection to branding applications. Honouring the 20th century of Brazilian modernist architecture and interior design, the team elevated Bossa’s standards, highlighting its roots through its brand story and extensive catalogue.
Californian cool + Italian heritage
Hailing from the historic city of Florence, Italy, Leo! Leo! is a testament to the enduring craft of gelato making. At its helm is founder Niccolo Lekai, who has been keeping alive a 500-year-old tradition on the sunny shores of California. After 10 years of crafting the perfect gelato, Lekai had the goal to evolve Leo! Leo! into an approachable, scalable brand without losing its Italian heritage or artisanal quality.
Drama, urgency and romance
Apex Wheels, a California-based company with over 15 years of experience, is not your typical wheel maker looking to make an easy buck. With a team of dedicated engineers who are also diehard motorsport enthusiasts, they create wheels that are not just about aesthetics but real performance. They take a stand against the unregulated wheel industry, striving against misleading claims and protecting motorsport enthusiasts from underperforming products.
Apex worked with San Francisco-based category design studio Gold Front to nail their reimagined brand image, aiming to put their wheels at the front of the pack. For both the brand and the studio, it was essential to highlight the problem customers were facing – a knowledge gap that companies were taking advantage of – and how Apex provides a solution with their “real performance” wheels, with its unrivalled performance-to-price ratio.
It’s time to
Join the visual revolution
For brands that want to disrupt. Using research compiled by their in-house trend hunters, DEATH TO STOCK produces fully licensed imagery designed to help brands not only keep up, but stand out.
Interviews
Yuriy Starikov
Yuriy Starikov is a London-based freelance designer who loves to play and explore. Whether he’s working on a big contract for a major brand like Nike, collaborating with agencies such as R/GA, Huge, and AKQA, or setting up his own design studio, Starikov is always learning, fuelled by curiosity. In this candid chat, we get a peek into his world, learning about his design approach, the ups and downs he faces, and his love for 3D work.
Colorblind Studio
At Colorblind Studio, founder Octavian Belintan is constantly pushing the team and their creative horizons. Their body of work speaks to this truth – since it was founded in 2015, Bucharest-based Colorblind has created identities for a four-star hotel, a sushi delivery shop, a big IT retailer, developed packaging for a hard seltzer, created a display typeface and also whipped up backdrop animation for a fashion show. A part of what lends the team this ability to flex their creative muscles no matter the scope of the project at hand is their dedication to “approach challenges with a mindset of “I haven’t done this yet” rather than “This is impossible”,” says Belintan. To get a deeper look at the practice and its inner workings, we sat down with Belintan to discuss why accepting failure is integral to making the work they do, how their appetite for more complex projects is growing, and how the success of the studio hinges on the prowess of a “hands-on team of highly skilled creatives who take deadlines seriously,” he adds, “but never more seriously than our health.”
Charmie Shah
Charmie Shah’s creative pursuits have taken her on a long journey – from Mumbai to New York, to be precise. Growing up as an innately creative child, her interests quite naturally steered her on her path to design. A certain curiosity about the world of branding and the way it works led her to the School of Visual Arts in New York City, which “opened doors to a whole new creative world,” says Shah. Since then, she’s worked with some heavy hitters in the industry – leading content strategy for Adobe India, designing identities for events by Google, and working on the much-talked-about Burger King rebrand. To take a pause, Shah talks to us about the circuitous but rewarding journey that’s guided her to where she is now – working independently as a creative director on projects that speak to her the most. In this conversation, she reflects on her decision to go freelance and why, this year, she’s choosing to celebrate the milestones and take a victory lap – a part of the experience of being a designer that’s quite easy to forget.
Assets
Books
The Process Two (Digital Edition)
The Process Two showcases the unused and unseen ideas, concepts, mockups and sketches that were created during the branding process. The book contains projects by Bunch, Bureau Borsche, Mildred & Duck, Never Now, Only, Ragged Edge, StudioSmall, Underline Studio and Vrints-Kolsteren.
Jobs
