Leonardo

Foundry

Foundry is a brutalist-inspired progressive art, culture, and co-working space created for Emaar communities.

Emaar defined an opportunity to add culture destinations into their mass scale communities spread across the Emirate, starting with Downtown Dubai. Their plan was to develop multifunctional spaces to engage the surrounding community through expression and culture. We were approached to help create and define the brand. Working closely with the project team we built out the envisioned brand strategy into a visual design system.

Foundry was born — a place to discover contemporary artworks, innovative pop-up activations, design stores, and co-working spaces. The industrial quality of the brand name and identity is a nod towards the brutalist aesthetic of the interior architecture. Based on the concept of perspective the logo was created to be both 2D and 3D — a reflection of not only the minimalist interior design but also the art forms that would be hosted within Foundry.

The brand design system revolves around the ‘F’ brandmark. It’s an anchor point for the base design of all communication materials, allowing for maximum impact of the artists work across both print and digital applications.




Brutalist interiors are characterised by a minimalist design that showcases the bare building materials and structural elements. The space makes use of exposed concrete and brick, angular geometric shapes, and a predominantly monochrome colour palette. These characteristics helped guide and define the brand identity, typography, palette, signage, and wayfinding.










Spread across seven galleries the exterior signage and graphic system needed to designate the space and showcase what was happening within. Bespoke graphic applications were created and applied across the window frontage, teasing the artist’s work showcased within. This helped illustrate Foundry’s content and generate intrigue from the surrounding community.


Typeface: Aktiv Grotesk
Photography: Farel Bisotto

More from Moloobhoy & Brown.
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by Leonardo

The Common Stove

Restauranteurs Simon and Darcy wanted to launch a high-end neighbourhood restaurant, with a difference. One based on community and togetherness, that unites people through food, and where everything possible is made in-house with gentle treatment of simple ingredients. They needed a compelling identity to help tell their story and define their brand character. By using intelligent, warm and engaging messaging we helped The Common Stove stand out and firmly secure their place as a leading restaurant.

Fuelling Orillia

“The Common Stove” comes from the idea of a communal oven and was inspired by a community design project in Slovenia. Here a traditional U-shaped wood-burning stove, known as a kachelofen, was built in a forest clearing and used as a central meeting point to connect three otherwise remote villages. A place to cook, eat, and come together.

This U shape inspired the chef’s counter and booth design in the Orillia restaurant with cooking centred around a wood-fired grill; borrowing not only its fuel and its shape, but also inspiration from how the kachelofen’s warmth and conviviality inspires community.

Every element of the brand identity had to speak of the local natural environment particularly through the use of wood to power the fire. But it also had to fuse the idea of food uniting people and articulate the strong sense of community behind the brand.

The menu takes its influence from the wood fired grill and elemental cooking with an emphasis on quality and simplicity using natural ingredients locally sourced from the vast forests and lakes.

Forged in flames

Our research into local competitors identified an opportunity to stand out from the crowd through intelligent, warm, and engaging messaging. We worked with the U shape used for the booths and kitchen counter to create a flexible holding shape reflecting the traditional concept of the kachelofen stove. It inspired the typographic detail, as well as physical elements such as door handles and menu holders.

We also created symbols to capture the wilderness feel of the area, food gathering and local charm. The colour palette was influenced by the local environment emulating the natural tones of the forests, crystal clear lakes and simple high-quality ingredients.


The typography used was inspired by eastern Europe and Russia — subtly referencing the roots of The Common Stove. Headlines were customised to reflect the geometric sans-serif details of the Toronto subway. The use of geometric shapes was further developed in the menu design, reminiscent of subway tiles.


Photography by Rene Dawn.

Lantern elsewhere on Identity Designed: National Children’s Bureau.
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by Leonardo

Onefold

Onefold is a clothing brand in New York that sells recycled cashmere garments for kids. Their approach to fashion challenges the way we think about kid’s clothes and the socialization of gender norms among children. They strongly believe that fashion shouldn’t define a child’s identity or restrict their movement throughout the world. The brand strives to create thoughtful, well-constructed, and long-lasting garments, with timeless and unisex designs that grow with your child.


The graphic solution follows the principle of simplicity, using timeless typographies, clean editorials and neutral colors, conveying the idea that less can be more. The icon was designed combining the concept of Onefold’s cyclical philosophy with the concept of infinity, resulting in a modernist and minimalist ribbon icon that represents the reuse of natural materials, while thinking that each piece can be worn for multiple years and then passed on to the next generation.




We wanted our visual outcome to align with our client’s vision. Staying away from gender stereotypes like blue for boys and pink for girls was something we absolutely agreed upon. We asked questions like, “Why do kid’s clothing brands have to all be overly childish with a naive or cute look and feel just because kids are associated with that aesthetic? We were influenced more by the vision of what was wanted for the brand in terms of simplicity and timelessness with a bit of playfulness.







Onefold, challenging the way we think about clothes through great design.

Photos by Futura and Stephen Blaise.

Futura elsewhere on ID: Buddy Buddy.
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by Leonardo

Breaking the Habit

Kristian is one of my best friends. He’s one of the funniest, most genuine people I’ve ever met. He’s also an addict.

He did not ask to be this way, but the effects of depression and anxiety led him on a path towards the illness and some very dark places.

After losing touch for a few years, Kristian resurfaced on Instagram, sixty days sober and with the announcement that he was launching a new podcast that would detail his journey from a 20-something gripped by alcohol addiction, to where he is now — a man thriving in recovery.

I reached out and offered to help. We caught up on the last few years, I learned a lot about what an addict is and what they are not. Some of his stories genuinely brought me to tears.

Over the last few months we’ve been working together to develop a visual identity and art direction style for the podcast, titled Breaking the Habit — An Odyssey of Addiction, Sobriety and Mental Wellbeing.


The visual identity uses repeated elements that somehow break or change to reflect the idea of “breaking out of the cycle of addiction.” Elsewhere, the use of metaphorical imagery and understated tone of the art direction reflects the raw, unfiltered themes of the podcast, creating an aura for the brand that is neither happy or sad in an attempt to capture the often uncertain journey from addiction to sobriety.

Poignant quotes of famous individuals who have battled addiction are visualised onto billboards and posted across the brand’s social media channels, to highlight their importance and to help give a voice to those who are suffering.


Episode 1 is now streaming everywhere.

More from Ash Watkins.
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by Leonardo