Kinframe Studio
A new identity for a 12-year-old furniture studio that had outgrown its first one.
TYPE
Brand · Identity & Web
YEAR
2024
TAGS
Branding · Editorial · Typography
ROLE
Design Lead
TIMELINE
Jun – Sep 2024 · 4 months
CLIENT
Kinframe Studio
TEAM
1 designer, 1 brand strategist
Overview
Kinfolk built their reputation on slow craft and honest materials. Their visual identity, made in 2012 by a friend, no longer matched the work. We kept what was true — the wordmark, the warmth — and rebuilt everything around it: typography, photography direction of the website.
Process
Spent two days in the workshop before opening Figma. Catalogued every existing touchpoint — invoices, business cards, the showroom signage. Designed the system in pencil first, then in code. Chose a custom serif paired font so the whole identity could live on one license.
Outcome
Inbound inquiries doubled in the three months after launch. The new site won a regional design award the team didn't enter — a journalist nominated it. The owner cried at the brand reveal, which I'm choosing to count as a metric.
Key Decisions
Preserved the original wordmark. It carried twelve years of trust — replacing it would have thrown away the very equity the rebrand was meant to protect. Let photography lead the system. The furniture was the strongest asset the studio had, so the identity was designed to frame the work rather than compete with it. Chose a single expressive typeface over a large system. A small studio needed something memorable and easy to apply, not a sprawling kit nobody would maintain.
Conclusion
Kinframe reminded me that a rebrand is really an act of listening. The best decisions came from what we chose not to change. By keeping the soul of the studio intact and rebuilding only what had aged, the new identity felt less like a reinvention and more like the studio finally looking the way it always was.
Gallery
