If Cupid’s arrow failed to strike last week fear not for you will fall head-over-heels for this work by Vancouver-based branding studio The Still Brandworks. Owned by two under 30’s, this small shop packs a big punch. I was particularly drawn to two pieces from their portfolio – their rebrand of The Vancouver Club and a “generative brandmark” project for Forward, an online Art & Culture magazine focussed on Canada’s Native communities.
Andrew Simpson of The Still shared the inspiration behind The Vancouver Club rebrand, “Our work for The Club… focused on… celebrating… the culture that has been lost in years past. Like renovating a heritage building, the goal was to make things more like themselves, not like something entirely new or different…Their new brand has its roots in the 98 year – old building [it] occupies. A monogram with over a hundred years of tradition was…refined from existing engravings to form the new face of The Club. The… website takes its inspiration from the pages of Harper’s Bazaar circa 1960. It plays heavily on how traditional magazine spreads might translate to a browser window or the screen of a mobile phone.”
Further, Simpson explains the concept for the Forward logo as a “generative brandmark built from satellite maps of the areas Forward writes about. As a new story is published, the mark is dynamically rebuilt and refocused on the area that the story is about. The intention was to address the huge and varied physical and cultural space that the audience and subject covers. The end result is built from elements of sacred spaces, circles, Canada’s supernatural landscapes and a strong, urban typeface. Like the people it represents, Forward exists in contradictions of natural and urban, physical and digital, traditional and modern.”
It’s not surprising that, at only six months old, The Still is booked solid through 2011. I’ll certainly be keeping my eye out for more.
To find out more on The Still Brandworks visit their site.
