We recently completed a section on our site featuring our identity and packaging system for March Pantry. Hearth and home are central to the store’s concept, and the shop stocks seasonal jams made especially for March by LouLou’s Garden, select spices from Le Sanctuaire, pots and pans from Brooklyn Copper Cookware, and handmade butcher block tables from Union Studio.

Our hand-lettered wordmark is printed and embossed on die cut labels with a laid finish; it is screen printed when applied to apothecary jars. The design is understated but invitational. (So far the system has won awards for typography from both Communication Arts and the Type Directors Club.) Photographer Kirk Amyx documented the work.

See our work to date for March Pantry under Design is Play Studio Systems.

Our friends at March asked us to design an invitation to a trunk show of apparel conceived by interior designer Sam Hamilton of March and textile and clothing designer Matt Dick of Mato Creative. Inspired by a mid-century photograph of a newspaper seller wearing a white paper apron with oversize headlines (i.e. “Football Results”), the invitation is screen printed on Tyvek. Matt transformed the flat piece into an apron by adding metal grommets and cotton ties, and then folding it.

Our original intention was to hand set the invitation text with xeroxes of hot metal type from an old Linotype specimen book, pasting it up one letter at a time. As sometimes happens, though, March fell in love with Angie’s rough sketch, and this became the basis of the final art. (The rough sketch is 3 1/2 inches wide—we enlarged it 1000% to the final width of 35 inches.) We like the contrast between the warmth and imprecision of Angie’s hand-traced type and the machined quality of Tyvek.

We recently designed an identity and packaging system for March Pantry in San Francisco, a new venture from retail store March. Mark created the original identity for March in 2003, one year after Tobias Frere-Jones’ Gotham became available to the public. Eight years later, Gotham has become so ubiquitous as to be invisible; as a result, we needed to create an identity for March Pantry that related to March’s use of Gotham Light, but that varied enough to be distinctive.

The ensuing type treatment is built on Gotham’s bones, but it deviates in significant ways. Foremost among the changes: we eliminated variations in stroke weight, redrawing the letters as monoline forms. In addition, we gave the leg of the R a modest lilt, and we rounded all of the external corners and terminals to soften the typographic “voice.” Finally, the implied geometry (and symmetry) of the original are fully realized: the letter C is based on a perfect circle, and the M is absolutely symmetrical. The net effect, in some sense, is to “de-design” the face, returning it to its vernacular roots. At least that’s how we think of it.

The tactility of embossed lettering on the printed label—as well as Angie’s handwriting—provides a warm contrast to the set type. Offset lithography and registered embossing by Oscar Printing; photography by Kirk Amyx. We will show more applications in due course….

We recently updated the section on our site featuring textbook covers we designed for Cengage Learning. Covers in this genre tend toward the literal, and rely heavily on stock photography. We aim to be metaphorical in our design approach, and to author our own images whenever possible. Each cover in this section features original photography, iconography, or typography.

See more examples of recent cover designs for Cengage Learning under Design is Play Studio Covers.