Brand design
2021 - 2023
Brand sprints in collaboration with writers
Overview
Selected projects as a freelance brand designer for Substack. Most of this projects are collaborations with writers in short brand sprints.
Featuring a minimalistic color palette and a logo designed for small applications: banners and social media profile pictures.
Broke Millennial
Substack
Erin Lowry is a writer who wanted an approachable yet serious brand to speak about personal finance and give people neutral and useful advice. She wanted a clean, gender neutral, irreverent and aware identity that could speak directly to millennials, while avoiding trends and over complicated things.
I achieved this by using an emoji, a recognizable icon and pairing it with a serif typeface to counterbalance the unseriousness of the emoji. My main idea was to strike a balance in the black and white logo, and adding the same elements to the primary color scheme: dark blue as the classic evocative of finance and seriousness combined with a fresh mint green and mid aquamarine green as the lighter and brighter component.
Money Honey
The writer wanted a clear indicative of what the topic was: conversations about money from a feminine perspective. The main goal of the newsletter was to appeal to women who were new to investing, finances and saving; making it easier to approach what are typically regarded as serious topics.
With the pairing of a strong serif and itallics, the wordmark reflects the tone of the writing: accessible and familiar yet serious. Paired with a color palette that features a classic bright red/dark blue combination with a light gray and a brighter purple to contrast and soften.
The client wanted to avoid squares and cluttering, so the logo features a rounded conversation bubble with the money sign, clear and directly related to her main writing topic.
Inner Circle is an online community that provides tools for people to focus on spiritual and personal growth. Their focus on wellness and spirituality asked for an elegant yet down to earth identity; with this in mind, I designed a main logo that speaks for the expansive quality of the personal development process.
With two set of lines, I created overlapping symbols: one in a circular shape, associated with wholeness, and the second becoming an eye, for spirituality. The lines start on the empty center of the eye, and expand from there, implying a sense of movement and growth.
The extended brand elements were designed to be highly flexible and dynamic. I created diagrams for storytelling and highlighting connections, along with a relaxed tone supported by the color scheme that reflects the brand's approachable traits.
Afrobeats Intelligence
Substack
Joey Akan is a multi-award winning music journalist who focus on writing about niche African music. He wanted a distinct, clever and sharp brand that could be a bridge between a serious editorial work and an approachable one. He leaned for a red or yellow color palette and wanted to avoid typical graphic clichés associated with African culture.
By combining the sound waves lines, a recognizable indicator of music, and the outline of the African continent, I created a straightforward logo that will grow along his newsletter. Along with the font pairing, I designed a logotype that matched his requirements: clean, approachable, and appealing to an expansive audience.