As a fresh design and aspiring architecture practice in Australia, Ian Bennett’s design practice was clearly driven by philosophy. His deep love of minimalism and bold lines clearly pointed to a way of working and thinking about spaces that were uniquely different from other architecture practices.

As part of the brand discovery process, Studio Otherness reached into the history of architecture, client interviews, and dialogues with professors of architecture to understand how others perceived Ian’s work.

Our biggest insight came from the inspiration that informed Ian’s practice: notable architects in South America who blended the insides and outsides of their built environments to create entirely new experiences.

From this perspective, the brand direction was self-evident: engagement of interior (positive) and exterior (negative) spaces became a key philosophical point for Ian Bennett’s studio. Through seeing the surfaces of paper and objects as positive and negative space, the brand design twists expectations of letterheads and standard business goods.

The new identity system reflects his aesthetic, turning a piece of paper into a design object that disrupts the negative space around it. When placed on a ninety-degree angle, the typography engages the negative space within the paper instead.

To focus everything on the purity of one concept, the rest of the design was kept strictly minimal: one typeface, Classic Grotesque, set spaciously. Working with Classic Grotesque allowed the delicate details of the typeface to shine through while keeping with a strong, blocky and contemporary aesthetic common in grotesque typefaces.

Layers of greys (supported by GF Smith Colorplan) reinforced Ian’s approach to minimal and natural materials, creating a timeless but ownable approach.