Portfolio
Two brand identity case studies, published in full, not a wall of a hundred thumbnails.
Most portfolios show the finished mark and nothing else. This brand studio in Austin — logo design, visual identity systems, project pages — shows what got asked for, what got argued down, and what shipped. Marra Goods needed a leather-goods identity that could survive a foil stamp at half an inch. Southbank Provisions needed a café identity that read from the sidewalk. Both are below, in full, with the working photographs.
Why only two case studies
This Austin design studio takes four projects at a time. Most of the work carries a confidentiality line in the contract because the client is a business that doesn't want its rebrand written up while it's mid-launch. Marra Goods and Southbank Provisions agreed to have theirs published, in full, including the parts that didn't work on the first pass. That's the honest sample. A portfolio of twenty logos with no context tells you nothing about how the studio handles a client who changes their mind in week two.
Each case below runs the same three questions: what was asked for, what the studio decided and why, and what actually changed once the mark was in use. If a project doesn't have an honest answer to the third question, it doesn't get written up as a success story.
Case studies
Read in full below-
- Asked
- A mark that could be foil-stamped small on a leather tag without turning into a blob of foil.
- Decided
- A single-weight geometric mark with no interior detail under 0.4 pt at stamp size, tested on four foil pressures before the concept was called final.
- Changed
- The tag went from a printed sticker to a stamped one, which the client now lists as a line item on the product page, not a cost they absorb quietly.
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- Asked
- A hanging sign and menu system legible from across a two-lane street, replacing a hand-painted sign that had faded unevenly.
- Decided
- A two-colour mark with a wordmark set wide enough to hold up at sign scale, paired with a single ink for cups and bags to keep print costs flat.
- Changed
- The owner reports regulars now point new customers to the sign as a landmark, which wasn't true of the old one.
If your project could hold up under this kind of write-up, start the conversation.
The studio takes on four projects at a time and is candid about the ones that took a second pass to get right.
Start a project inquiry