Branded
SELECT BRANDING PROJECTS
Hugo Martinez —
Motorsportswear Designer
TLDR
Minimalist brand identity for luxury motorsports-inspired fashion designer Hugo Martinez, drawing inspiration from racing & the powerful feelings that motorsports create.
Concept: Flag, HM monogram, tire marks.
Photography by Hugo Comte. Jackets by HUGOMARTINEZ. HM mark by Sacha Drouin.
Backstory
[REDACTED]
“▬▬▬▬▬▬ ▬▬▬ ▬ ▬▬▬▬ ▬▬▬▬▬▬ ▬▬▬ ▬▬
▬▬ ▬▬▬▬ ▬▬▬ ▬▬ ▬▬▬▬▬,”
“I’ve never told that to anyone,” he said.
“Why did you tell me?” I asked, taken aback.
He paused to think.
“I knew you’d understand,” he concluded.
As we drove around a circuit of Montreal’s uptown streets at sunset — a ritual Martinez repeats religiously — I was getting to know the character and his wild backstory.
Sometimes branding prep can be like therapy — especially for founders.
The uncommon energy Martinez radiates was starting to make sense now. I knew his type. Tough past. Dreamer. Wild ambition. These personalities and I tend to magnetize to each other.
Business cards featuring Hugo’s evening drive circuit.
“Visualize. Feel. Drive. That’s what it’s all about”
“I want something understated, with the feel of a luxury brand, but the power of a sports car.”
Before long, we had our “hell yeah” moment — starting with a mark combining his initials (HM) with two of the most iconic visual cues from the racetrack: tire marks on asphalt & racing flags.
The forward skew suggested speed — yet an overall feeling of composure & universality remained. Martinez gives me way too much credit for this. He's a fan.
Photography by Hugo Comte. Jackets by HUGOMARTINEZ. HUGOMARTINEZ mark by Sacha Drouin.
Impactory —
Coworking Space
TLDR
Iconic & visually striking identity for a coworking space located in Moncton, New Brunswick. Symbolism: Connecting individuals in a shared space.
Business cards featuring my logo mark for Impactory
Backstory
“It has to be yellow; it’s a trending color this year”
[Deep breath]
I was tasked with branding this new-at-the-time coworking space. Amidst debates between the client & the agency regarding how much yellow is too much yellow, I was plugging away at proposals.
When the project landed on my desk, the place was going to be called The Hive. Strategy meetings then revealed that honey bee-related SEO was comedically hard to outrank, so the client opted to change the name to Impactory mid-project.
This triggered a bit of a “back to the drawing board” phase, but as it turns out, the honeycomb & beehive references from the original name made it into the final logo — symbolically speaking, it hit the bullseye of what we were going for.
Once I figured out a way to interlace symbols representing community, networking & space, it was nailed. Sometimes you just know!
Breakdown of the mark’s symbolic elements.
The Impactory branding in situ.
Solicanada —
Bioclimatic Pergolas
Project
Rebrand a pergola company while referencing their legacy logo. Symbolism: tame the sun.
Bottom left: Mark for Solicanada. Top right: That’s a pergola — a structures that provides shade in outdoor lounge areas.
Director’s cut
Sometimes all you get is "they make pergolas & they want to refresh their outdated brand".
"What's a pergola?"
Turns out they look like this & this. Essentially a large permanent shade maker with an on/off switch. Kind of cool, although I'm not their target market — I'm far too white to buy shade.
I picked up on the idea of white stripes blocking out the sun. To give it some dimension & a contemporary feel, I integrated the idea of heat waves. Voilà!
In building out brand collateral, one of the challenges was the client's requirement to include the elements of the parent brand in some of the lockups. (pictured here)
I convinced them to let me simplify the elements to achieve cohesion of the old with the new. See the mockups below for the solutions.
The legacy brand for reference.
