In the past three years, we had the opportunity to work with Jeremy Jude Lee on several projects. When he reached out to refresh his photography brand and portfolio website, we were more than excited to take on the opportunity. Jeremy is a household name in Vancouver when it comes to photographers. With each project, he would not only bring his incredible eye but also his uplifting enthusiasm and spirit to set. For this identity project, we wanted to make sure we did his work and his personality justice, all the while setting the stage for his continual growth in the industry.
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<h2>Branding</h2>
With such a vast amount and variety of work, one of the main goals for the project was to curate his existing work to better capture Jeremy’s photography style and attract a clientele with a similar vision.
As we began to reorganize his work, we found the theme of an art gallery to be a fitting concept for Jeremy’s brand direction. From the act of curation, to the consistency in type treatment, we applied these visual cues to Jeremy’s brand in hopes of elevating his work to the world of high art.
Having worked with Jeremy on multiple shoots, we also recognized his infectious energy and ability to connect with others as unique aspects of his identity. Jeremy’s personable qualities allows him to capture more intimate moments with his subjects—framing all of this through his lens.
These focus points brought our attention to Jeremy’s middle name in his brand. We recognize there is something intimate and personal about a middle name. Jeremy’s middle name, Jude, stands out to us and is a unique part of his identity. In our execution of the concept, we utilize parentheses as a way to highlight the middle name. Similar to the function of a camera lens, the parentheses in our concept act as a way of focusing or framing something of importance.
For the brand system and type treatment, we took inspiration from art galleries, museums, and streetwear culture. We strived to bring the same amount of prominence to Jeremy’s existing work, while creating a tone for the future and potential work to come. We choose a sans serif and serif type pairing to highlight this balance between sophistication and authenticity. Tight margins were used to create a refined appearance and visual approach that displays confidence and excellence.

<h2>Website Design</h2>
Carrying this concept into the portfolio site design, we wanted the site to act as a gallery space for the rotating work that would be put up. We focused on the organization of the site, the details of type setting as well as the use of negative space. We wanted the website to first display the overview page—providing viewers with a quick summary of Jeremy’s work and capabilities. We believed this would be useful for potential clients to get a quick sense of Jeremy as a photographer when considering working together. The overview page utilizes a set of four layout variations that creates a collage-like appearance while maintaining a consistent structure. We also included a journal section for Jeremy to display glimpses of his recent work and travels.

Services

Location

Credits

Art Direction

Branding

Identity

Website

Jeremy Jude Lee

Studio Kardum is a Vancouver based design studio providing full-service design for real-estate development, corporate, hospitality, and private clients.
With 15+ years of experience in interior design, project management, creative direction, and styling, Owner and founder Christine Kardum is no stranger to the interior design industry. While her work has played a significant role in shaping the city, Christine never had a proper visual identity created for her design practice. Christine reached out to us during the beginning of lockdown, and while it was strange not being able to work together in person, Christine’s warm personality and passion for design still left an impression on us through the form of Zoom calls and emails. This definitely inspired our approach to the design of her brand identity.

<h2>Brand Identity</h2>
During our discovery phase, we identified one of Studio Kardum’s brand pillars as being “inherently human”. Those words truly resonated with our team and led us into exploring humanist sans serif typefaces that provided a contemporary yet natural appearance. We decided to design a custom humanist font, creating a limited set of letters to make up the Kardum wordmark. After creating the wordmark for the full name as “Studio Kardum”, we decided together with Christine that her surname “Kardum” would be unique and strong enough as a wordmark. Using just her last name as the wordmark also reinforces the idea of a personal and intentional aspect to her brand.
To bring contrast to the organic wordmark, we use Neue Haas Grotesk as the main brand typeface which provides a more neutral and grounding tone of voice in all brand documents and reflects the restraint and understated nature of Christine’s design approach.
During our conversations, Christine mentioned how the simple act of creating division in a space can evoke different feelings about that same space. This sparked the idea for creating a simple grid system that can be used as a subtle visual element on print and screen collateral. By drawing lines that dissect a surface area, we are in the same way, dividing up space and causing the space to be viewed in a new light.

<h2>Website</h2>
The design of the Studio Kardum website mimics the idea of a house with its different rooms and divisions. Using this visual motif, we aimed to evoke the emotional feeling of entering a home. We envisioned opening the entrance door into a beautiful, spacious, and relaxing living room 1 (fading image carousel). Continuing to walk past the corridor, we entered a room adorned with framed artworks and a window facing a small backyard 2 (featured projects section). The artworks guide us down the staircase 3 where we find a wall of bookshelves 4 (project index). This approach helps us create content pacing and establish a more deliberate approach to the grouping and presentation of information.
Carrying the brand system forward, the website design utilizes the visible grid structure, displaying both the vertical and horizontal lines that divide up information on the page.
The website features a very simple three page menu in &#8216;projects&#8217;, &#8216;studio&#8217; and &#8216;contact&#8217;. With the understanding that interior and construction work often takes time, the projects overlay showcases both completed project case studies and in-progress projects to provide a fuller picture of the full body of work at Studio Kardum. Each project page also includes an area to highlight the materials used within the project as a way to offer greater details into the design process of each build.

Feature

Studio Kardum

We were connected with Lida, Eva and Elpida of 10 Artists Management (10AM) during the summer of 2019. 10AM is a boutique agency that represents the best photographers, stylists, makeup artists and hair stylists in Greece. On top of providing stellar imagery and motion for the fashion industry, 10AM also offers services in production.
Lida and her team had already built a strong presence in Athens, establishing their company as a leader in the creative industry. Beyond their creative services, 10AM has also created 10AM Lofts—a collection of elevated spaces in downtown Athens available for film-photo productions, events, dinners, exhibitions, residence and other collaborations.
10AM approached us to help further solidify their brand and refine their visual direction, one that correctly reflected the impressive reputation they have already built.

Working with the 10AM team, we aimed to achieve a brand identity that would be closer to their current brand, while showing a maturation and refinement that was reflective of their brand’s growth.
Hence, we set out to find a sans serif that offered the same modern and neutral tone of voice as the classic Helvetica (currently used in the brand), while offering a new level of refinement in the typeface. Untitled Sans was chosen for these reasons and while it is a neutral sans serif, the refined curves of the letterforms in Untitled Sans offers a bit of warmth and approachability in its overall appearance. While this warmth is a small detail, we felt this reflected 10AM perfectly in the way they work and build relationships.
The “0” in the 10AM wordmark actually uses the letter “O” instead of a zero. As a result, it makes the word-mark more balanced, where the “0”, “A” and “M” share more equal widths.
This subtle swap allowed us to obscure the reading of 10AM, providing a more unique display of the letters. As a result, we hope it allows readers to view the letters less as the time, “10:00AM” and more as the name of an agency.

10AM

Brand Identity

2019

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