What guides us
How do we create integrated brands?
The housing market in Southern California is ultra-competitive. Homebuilding is treated as an opportunity for the builder to make money rather than create homes that last.
As an LA native, David Minc wanted to go in the opposite direction.
Although buying a home is one of the most significant acts in a person’s life, the process is often opaque. Because of this, David wanted the brand to speak from a clear and trustworthy perspective. We had several conversations from this starting point, which led us to a simple vision of the company:
Create houses with a sense of belonging so people can build homes from them.
Because his business is uniquely positioned to finance, design, and build homes, he can focus on creating homes with higher quality, better materials, and more precise craftsmanship.
The brand name, Minc, plays two roles: a literal reference to David and a metaphorical relationship with the luxurious quality of his work. We approached that luxury with a modern Californian perspective, opting for subdued minimalism and sincere, straightforward copywriting.
The visual identity’s pristine tones, reliable hand-typed typography, and graphic ‘workflow’ arrows transmit ideas of clarity, loyalty, and transparency. A hex-nut icon inspired by the logotype lets the brand communicate multiple business values: design, construction, and trust.
Kaela Cohen is an interior designer based in Los Angeles who offers interior design services and vintage-sourced decorative objects. She approached me to develop a new brand that spoke to her elegant and natural style.
Her unique interior designs, as well as the rare objects in her collection, created the foundation for 'elusiveness' as the brand concept. What grew from this was a brand that focuses on saying more with less and which errs on the side of subtly. A loose system that combines color, typography, and line interpretations of French wall paneling allows the brand to express itself while staying true to its elusive nature.
Branding and packaging for small Italian olive oil producers, Paolo Miceli and Sergio Sensat.
The symbol is created by two dot grids set in two different shades of green that when overlapped generate a new green: the sum of both colors, representing the two founders’ complementary characters and desire to generate something new.
When approaching the label, a couple of things were clear to us:
The design should feel Italian – rooted in history. The same history and vernacular that is often seen in Sicily.
Conversely, the founders are newcomers so they cannot make this feel like a traditional Sicilian olive oil. Even though Paolo’s family has been in the region for 10 generations, they were unwilling to claim a heritage that is too often used as a sales proposition, but wanted to somehow represent that deep knowledge and love for history in the island. Instead, they decided to bring a fresh eye when it comes to making olive oil on the Island.
We decided to overprint layers of traditional elements –typefaces, embossings, and treatments– to create a contemporary take on Sicilian history. Constructing a label that combines influences that were never meant to be together, somehow seems to create a unique personality that works seamlessly.
Our world is facing an unprecedented environmental crisis. To demonstrate how a selection of label materials can express a brand’s sustainable ethos, Avery Dennison, the global materials science company, teamed up with Mucho to develop speculative products that stem from existing or emerging beauty solutions.
Under the theme of Zero Waste Beauty, Mucho worked across its network of design studios to produce a collection of seven unique brands that celebrate beauty both inside and out. These brands are brought to life through a single product, which is paired with a sustainable label material.
Hac Te is Barcelona’s new Hub focused on the exploration and development of the intersections between Art, Science and Technology. The Hub is a result of the coming together of nine institutions, striving to make the city a global centre for research, training, dissemination, transfer and production in these fields.
The Barcelona Hub d’Art, Ciència i Tecnologia was reduced to Hac Te, a name which works as both a play between a descriptive acronym and the letters H and T in Catalán. Together, Hac Te phonetically makes a hint at the word hacked.
Hac Te’s visual language is centred on the concept of digital transformation, expressed graphically in a duality representing the amalgamation of Art and Technology. This duality is present in the logo, designed to represent both the Hub and Art, and is also part of the brand’s communication, which uses contradictory concepts beginning with H and T to describe it.
As part of the brand identity, we designed a secondary display typeface. Based on the form of the logo’s H character, the typeface is designed as a hybrid of sans-serif and pixel, aimed to compliment the visual language whilst making reference to early digital technology.
Naming by Mucho & Usted.
Yuzu koshō is a Japanese specialty condiment made from fermented chilis, citrus, and sea salt. Waao is a contemporary take on the traditional recipe.
Working together with the two partners, we built the brand from the ground up, strategizing the best way to approach this modern version of yuzu koshō. Instead of speaking about history and tradition, Waao talks about the flavorful impact and dimension that it adds to anything it touches. This way, the brand becomes more playful, communicating a sense of excitement and surprise.
The name references the visceral reaction when tasting yuzu koshō for the first time. The colors are as eye-catching as the flavor. In motion, the brand is active and evokes a sense of passion but retains authenticity through its use of woodblock engravings.
Packaging design and more brand applications to come in the future.
For Javier Limón’s third compilation album, Hombres de Fuego, he gathered together a group of the most talented flamenco artists from across Spain and Latin America.
The first two albums, Mujeres de Agua and Promesas de Tierra, spoke about perspectives from women, and young Palestinian and Israeli musicians, respectively. Hombres de Fuego focuses on flamenco from the male perspective.
For our part, we created vinyl, cd, and digital artwork that takes the name literally.
Utilising a variety of paints and inks in combination with a Rorschach printing technique, a 12-layer bonfire reflects the contribution from each of the album’s 12 songs. Thick oil paint becomes fingerprints and watercolour laps at the typography like flames.
The singles artwork isolates each of these Rorschach prints to create ‘characters’ for each song.
Brand strategy, verbal and visual identity for a fashion brand based around self-expression, gender-inclusivity, and consumption.
A poster that uses fragments of unsuccessful drafts to create the final product, in order to talk about the usefulness of imperfection.
A steamy, physical, graphic expression of our pandemic-induced reality.
Branding, event collateral, and a tactile editorial that celebrates young people of color in advertising.
A self-initiated typeface based on the signage and architecture of New York City’s old Romanesque-influenced subway stations.
A visually frenetic campaign for the Æther helmet from Giro Cycling.
Design, styling, and art direction for Toyota's 2018 global campaign in partnership with the International Olympics Committee, which revealed Toyota’s new strategy as a mobility brand rather than car manufacturer.