Mutual trust makes a good job

Studio Marziale is an independent graphic design studio founded and led by Federica Marziale Iadevaia. Recently Marziale invited Valentina Casali to design its new logo with a request to reflect the studio’s rigorously expressive communication and identity systems. And Casali’s solution, with its balanced and dynamic structure, nicely fills the bill.

‘This project,’ says Valentina, ‘was made possible by strong mutual trust: a clear initial direction, coupled with real creative freedom – a combination that often leads to the most satisfying results. Our starting point was the name ‘studio marziale’, handwritten with a pencil by Marziale herself. By doing this, her idea was to express her personal precise and lively approach to design. The request was for a handwritten brand/logo in gestural yet controlled letterforms. The brand identity also had to work across different media, including an extended version of the logo and a more compact version – as a monogram – for small-scale applications.

The logo was developed with dozens of brush-pen roughs which were assessed, refined and reassembled in a quest for a balance between expressiveness and clarity. ‘The original handwritten gesture’ explains Valentina, ‘wasn’t discarded; it was refined. Its energy is still there, but it is more restrained and functional. The vertical strokes show how the brush-pen was held at a quite flat angle. Moreover, some of the gestural idiosyncrasies can be seen in the final result. The overall brand identity of the studio was then developed by the owner, with great care taken in the choice of colours and supporting typography.’