sara marshall imagines hand lettered logos in the corporate world

sara marshall imagines hand lettered logos in the corporate world
all images courtesy of sara marshall

‘brand by hand’ is an experimental lettering project by new zealand-based designer sara marshall that introduces the personal nature of hand lettering into the cold, corporate world. major brands have steered their graphic design towards a flat, minimalist style — a trend which has seen imagery reduced to simple, iconic representations. few colors are used, and they often employ the use of extensive negative space.

the handmade burger king logo applied to the take-out bag

in contrast — and in response to — this minimalist movement, many people are longing for the handmade, resulting in a huge rise in popularity of hand lettering characterized by imperfections, texture and embellishment.

‘brand by hand’ explores a variety of styles and contemporary trends within lettering itself — custom scripts and brushwork, calligraffiti and contemporary signpainting — to transform fedex, burger king, subway, flickr, youtube, skype, evian and coca-cola into softer and more personal versions of themselves. the project reimagines these logos while retaining key defining elements of their original branding, both investigating the essence of the brand and testing the strength of their associations.

fed-ex spelled out in calligraphy brush script

the fed-ex logo applied to the side of a delivery truck

coca-cola is printed in a gothic-style font

applied to the side of a coca cola can

the design evian water mimics the original brand mark

the skype logo is treated with a script font

the flickr logomark is highly styled

subway spelled out in hand lettering

tech giant samsung takes on a softer and more personal tone