Nexus · Branding studio · Chicago · Since 2015
12 col · 24 px gutter · 8 px baseline
Identity systems for companies that have outgrown their first logo.
We are a branding studio of four in Chicago. We build the mark, the type, the color and the grid as one system, then hand it over in a form your own team can run without us.
1.0
Clients
Every engagement since 2015, in the order they started, with the ones still running marked.
8 clients 8 sectors since 2017 3 current
2.0
Selected work
Three recent systems, each written up with the client, the sector and the year in the margin.
3.0
Services
Four things we do, one line each. The full clauses, the timetable and the fees are on the services page.
Recent systems for Halden Bank, Meridian Health, Fieldnote and Arbor Museum.
4.0
The studio
Four people, one grid, and a way of working that survives the handover.
We build identities as systems, so the fortieth application looks like the first.
Nexus is a branding studio of four in Chicago's West Loop. We started in 2015 with a regional bank that had eleven versions of its logo and no rule for choosing one. We wrote the rule, then the rest of the system, and we have worked the same way since.
Every engagement ends with a grid, a type scale, a color set and the guidelines that explain them, built so an in-house team can run it without calling us. Our invoices, our decks and this site sit on the same twelve columns as the work.
- Based
- Milan, Brera, and wherever the fitting is
- Since
- 2011, assisting from 2005
- Represented
- Studio Marsala, for editorial and campaign
- Languages
- Italian, English, French
5.0
In figures
The numbers a client asks for, kept since the first engagement and checked every January.
Identity systems shipped
Every one with a grid, a type scale and guidelines handed over.
Still in use unchanged
Counted at the start of each year by asking the client.
Average engagement
From the first workshop to the handover of the files.
Applications per system
Print, screen, signage and packaging, all drawn on the same grid.
6.0
References
What clients said after the handover, filed against the engagement it came from.
Ruth Adeyemi
Head of marketing
Halden Bank
Identity system and rollout
2019
Two years on, our in-house team has produced over three hundred pieces and none of them look like a departure. The guidelines are the reason. They are written to be used, not admired.
Dr. Samuel Kirchner
Chief executive
Meridian Health
Naming and identity
2021
They renamed a hospital network without a single board member asking for the old name back. The naming round was shown to us in full, including what they threw away, which is why we trusted the answer.
Lena Bergstrom
VP product
Fieldnote
Identity and product marks
2023
We shipped the new mark across the product in one sprint because the files arrived measured. Every icon, every state, every spacing value was on the same grid as the marketing site.
Peter Okafor
Publisher
Ostrom Press
Series system
2017
The series system paid for itself in the first season. Forty covers, one rule, and a designer who had never seen the brand could set the forty-first.
7.0
Journal
Notes on grids, type, color and the handover, written by the four of us.
Why every deliverable sits on the same twelve columns
Our invoices, our decks, the guidelines and this site share one grid. It is not a style. It is the reason the fortieth application looks like the first.
A type scale of five sizes, and why the sixth gets refused
Every identity we ship has five text sizes. Requests for a sixth arrive in the second month of every engagement, and we say no every time. Here is why.
One signal color is a decision. A palette is a postponement.
Most of the identities we ship carry black, white, two grays and one color. The color is the only one the client argues about, and the argument is the point.
Start with a conversation, not a pitch.
Send us what you have: the old logo, the reasons it stopped working and the date you need something better. We reply within two working days with whether it is a fit and what we would do first.