I am over the moon to be able to put this presentation together for you. Yes! It’s another brewing branding project, and yes they’re another amazing brewery. What I love about this project though is that I really pushed myself to come up with something unique in this crowded market. Craft beer is going gangbusters at the moment in Australia and for this project I wanted to design a logo suite and corporate identity system that drew on every aspect of my graphic design skills. From lettering and typography, illustration and packaging layout design, this project has it all and I am super proud of the outcome. Their beer is next level and they needed an identity that lived up to the hype surrounding their beautifully delicious craft beer. I’ve also tipped my hat to the American influence it’s had with the resurgence of craft beer. If you ever see their brews out in the wild, grab yourself some. Trust me, you’ll be in hop heaven.
As a specialist in corporate identity, logo design, lettering and drinking good beer, there’s certain jobs that are very appealing for me to work on. This my friends is one of them. I love beer, I love designing… it’s a match made in heaven. So for this project it was a challenge because being a gluten reduced beer I wanted it to exude a sense of coolness so people looked past the stereotype associated with wanting to create something that’s gluten free. We buy with our eyes first so this can had to look cool and crafted. To add that craft feel I custom created absolutely every element of the design in a hand drawn vintage style. There’s also the name, which can be translated a few different ways. The story goes though, the brewer’s two puppies got very very sick when they got in to a bag of his hops. So Sick Puppy literally means a “sick puppy”. The story is in the art if you look close enough. I hope you enjoy.
“I loved how he looked outside the box with his creativity.”
- Dean Costigan – Sick Puppy Brewery
The three lads from Black Hops Brewery (Burleigh Heads, Gold Coast) came to me in late 2015 with a request to help them rebrand. Playing on the military pun of their name “Black (H)ops” they were concerned their current military style logo was going to pigeon hole their audience. Wanting to be more accessible to a wider demographic it was my job to balance the act of not turning my back on their military past, yet infuse a sense of approachability so that it wasn’t just young play station loving men that loved to sample their fine tasting craft beers. Check out this blog post from Black Hops that documents the process, including a conference call I had with the boys at one of the key design stages. Classic listening, scattered with colourful language.
Late last year I was commissioned by EMI to design the lettering for Troye Sivan’s debut album cover, Blue Neighbourhood. Since then the album has become an international success. Troye has appeared on 60 Minutes Australia and also performed his hit tracks on numerous talk shows such as The Ellen Degeneres Show and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. With advertising in illustrious places like Time Square, NY Time Magazine had listed him at the time in the top 25 Most Influential Teenagers. Troye is quickly becoming a mega star, so to have been asked to do the lettering for such a huge up and coming talent was a great privilege. The best part though is my daughters absolutely love his music and it was a fun project to work on.
View the project to check out some of the process shots and finished products.
Alrighty, like a bandaid… STRAIGHT OFF!
This is an unused logo and corporate identity concept.
There, I said it.
Blue Water is a digital agency in Washington DC and they’re a fantastic client that has commissioned me to do a number of projects. Originally when asked to design their new logo and visual identity rebrand I was asked to craft something with a hand made aesthetic to mirror their values of being a digital agency that takes pride in constructing websites with artisan code. Code that’s crafted with the same love and detail that you expect from a more tactile craftsman. To do this, whilst still honour the fact they are a “digital agency” I hand crafted their logo using a soft tipped brush pen with blue water (blue ink plus water) and then complimented the visual assets that support the logo with patterns and devices that are influenced by coding tag ( < > ) motifs.
This, along with my ‘Mandy’ project are now my most favourite unused projects.
Why wasn’t it used? Understandably the corporate side of the business needed to shine more. That presentation is coming soon.
This logo and branding assignment is one of my most favourite projects and I’m delighted to finally share it with you on my website. Usually when I get briefed on a project I immediately get visions of how that visual identity should present. Sometimes when executing an idea, along the way the process can evolve to become something that differs from what you first envisioned. Not the case for this Italian Restaurant Bar that’s values are very enriched in tradition. The outcome is exactly as I first visualised and the process getting there was nothing but enjoyable. It’s always a delight to see it come together and I hope you enjoy the process video of crafting the logo with my brush pen calligraphy.
Cavalier Logo Process from Matt Vergotis on Vimeo.
Salt Bar is situated in Northern NSW in the heart of Salt Village at Kingsliff. This logo is part of a rebrand whereby I was asked to come up with a corporate identity system that gave the establishment a warm, familiar, upbeat yet relaxing feel. Over time I will populate this page with photography as the branding rolls out.
Originally this was posted on Behance where it made the feature page so thought it was time to give it a home here.
This post is a collaboration of some of my process lettering videos and photos that I’ve posted on Instagram. In the past I’ve only posted logos and visual identity presentations, so I thought it would be a nice change of pace as this is a large part of what I do these days.
2013 was the biggest year I’ve had yet in terms of lettering. The majority of the corporate identity jobs I received were all for lettering style logos. On top of that I was a guest speaker at Typism, Australia’s first all day conference dedicated to typography, featuring the likes of Gemma O’Brian, Wayne Thompson, Aurelie Maron, Nicole Philips, Bobby Haiqalsyah and Dominique Falla (who put the whole shindig together).
To close my speech at Typism I made the first video to the soundtrack of my all time favourite band, Radiohead and their song Daily Mail. I discovered this song when I saw them live in Brisbane at the end of 2012 and immediatly fell in love with it – for me, the highlight of their performance. When I’m stuggling to focus or find that creative zen, Radiohead is my “go to band” that realigns my creativity. It’s also a testament to their creative ability to evolve with every album. What an achievement for a band that’s been around as long as they have.
The second video was put together recently when I received a lot of requests to make another video. This time I decided to use the music of a fellow work colleague, the extremely talented Luke Garfield and his band Board of Transportation. When I first heard his music I was blown away that someone that shares the same office space was writing and producing such amazing music. This song, ‘Lines and Powerlines’ I never tire of and is one of my favourites. I strongly suggest you check out their website where there are a few free downloadable songs.
The below are photos of various lettering assignments taken with my iPhone. This for me is the fun stage where I get grubby with the tools, listen to good music and just plough through the ink and paper practicing over and over, trying to familiarise myself with certain letter arrangements along with the tools I’m using. Towards the end there’s just a couple of the finished vectored and published versions so you can see how it all comes together.
ps. I’ve put together a list of all my favourite pens and brush pens and how to get them.
“Dissimo font was built to resemble the columns one would expect gracing the entrance of a GRAND Museum” – Matt Vergotis
Hello there designers and font lovers alike! I’m the creater of Dissimo font family and I have designed many typefaces for clients’ logos in the past. It’s a passion of mine in my spare time to take these logotypes and turn them into fully functional fonts which in turn help me gain a better understanding of letterforms.
So I am super proud to announce Dissimo as my follow up font to my debut, Knubi. But this time as a complete font family.
The name Dissimo was born from the imagination of my daughter and it means “kind person”. It’s also coincidently a beautiful small town nestled in the northern mountains
of Italy.
Dissimo’s story begins where it was once referred to as Museology. I was commissioned to design a logo for a fashion label (Museology – meaning: the study of museums). For this reason the typeface was crafted to resemble a modern stylistic version of ancient Greek Doric style columns. This is what makes up the DNA so Dissimo has been created to be solid and very sturdy in structure. The architecture behind the construct was born through the use of geometry and refined by the eye.
Dissimo font family consists of: Bold, Medium, Regular, Light and four Italic versions: Bold Italic, Medium Italic, Regular Italic and Light Italic.
“I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating, you are a design savant. Everything you attempt turns out awesome, and this font is no exception. It seriously looks so professional, if I didn’t know any better, I’d assume it was created by someone who dedicates their career to designing fonts. Congrats, Matt.”
– Jon Stapp, Creative Director. Atomic Vibe
The bolder weights have been designed to work extremely well as logotypes or display fonts. Coupled with the rest of the family the lighter weights and italic versions are also designed to complement each other in editorial layouts or for corporate literature where headlines, sub headlines, body copy, captions and quotes are required. So for this reason Dissimo is a great font family that can serve a company’s corporate identity style guide.
I would like to dedicate this font to my eldest daughter, Sofia. The hard work I have put into building this font family is a tribute to all the hard work she puts into the little things she does every day. Little by little big things can happen. Thank you Sofia for all the love, you truly are an amazing girl and I love you to bits.
So by dedicating Dissimo to Sofia means I’m not done with building fonts as I know my youngest daughter will cry favouritism if I don’t dedicate a font family to her now. So stay tuned and watch this space as that is enough of a driving force to balance the scales.
My plans next will be to move on to a contemporary san serif font family.
• • •
I hope you enjoy Dissimo.
Matt Vergotis
DOWNLOAD HERE (one of the weights is FREE for personal use)
Special thanks to Aliesha Mandy for allowing me to use her stunning photos. You can follow her work on Behance or Instagram. I’d also like thank Wayne Thompson from the Australian Type Foundry for offering helpful tips along the way when it came to the metrics.2013 was another huge year for me creating logos and corporate identities for companies. But the one real flavour of 2013 was again ‘lettering’. If 2012 kicked off this style for me, 2013 solidified it as a skill set that saw clients from all around the world desiring it. I have always tried to be very versatile in terms of styles, as it’s the variety and diversity of every individual client requirement that dictates the style execution that’s best suited for them (what a mouthful). In a nutshell; every client is unique, so therefor every client requires a different approach. This is why I love my job so much – It’s problem solving and it keeps things interesting.
So here’s to another year of designing. I hope you like my snap shot of 2013 in the form of logos.
All the best and have a wonderful 2014.
Matt
Logo and Brand Identity by VERG (Matt Vergotis)
The Anchorage Restaurant is an iconic waterside restaurant, an old historic boat shed jutting onto Port Philip Bay in Melbourne. With this rebrand I was aiming to design something contemporary and intimate whilst acknowledging their heritage & past. This brand is backed up by creating extra visual elements further aid the corporate identity, like patterns, icons and a beautiful corporate colour palette. The pattern I created for this is my most favourite pattern I’ve created to date (also the trickiest).
Britannica Family Office (Note: presentation incorrectly says “home office”) is a boutique consultancy, specialising in British education and key aspects of family relocation to the UK.
To help a child and parents build a strategy for life in terms of education and next steps. This long term view, together with ability to provide best contacts for any relevant need (real estate/tax advise etc) is my unique selling point.
View the project to understand the logo mark and type rationale for this corporate identity project.
It’s done, It’s finished, It’s designed, It’s kerned and I have 380 glyphs that supports 80 languages, packaged up as a lovely little .otf file ready to go.
If you’re interested in getting your hands on knubi regular click on the download link or click here and it will take you to a page where there’s two download options.
If you would like to read about the process and see a few tasty examples before you download, click on through to see it in action.
Sanders is a printing company in Denmark. I was commissioned by them to come up with a lettering style logo and visual identity system as a new and fresh rebrand for the company. This Client was probably the nicest client I have worked with to date. Not to take anything away from my other wonderful clients, but I was truly overwhelmed with how friendly and appreciative they were to my service.
This is just one of the many nice comments that was made about their new logo and visual identity.
It looks soooo perfect, awesome, great etc. That logo was really made for us, serious! It was meant to be that way. It looked like it has already been our logo for years, it feels so trustful (I don’t know how to explain this part exactly). I have put this new logo already deep in my heart.
I also made a video of the lettering process that you can watch if you view the project.
Logo and Brand Identity by VERG (Matt Vergotis)
This was a signature mark I created for a client of mine in London. This presentation was the first concept where my solution was to create a sassy and confident signature mark. In the end it was not right for the client, as she wanted less focus on her name, and more on ‘Artist Management’. This logo, along with my David Michael logo, really kick started my lettering passion as clients out of the woodwork noticed these two brands and requested similar styles.
Lettering Logotypes 2012
2012 saw me take on stacks of lettering projects. The David Michael logo I created right at the beginning of the year was the first time I really pushed myself in this area. From there I got more requests for this style of logo and have since been very enthusiastic to continue down the lettering path. Next year I hope to continue to do many more lettering projects along with my new passion in typeface design.
Below is a snapshot of some of my favourite lettering and hand written logotypes of 2012.
Logo and Brand Identity by VERG (Matt Vergotis)
This was an enjoyable lettering project. The client requested a signature style logo and an brand identity that was approachable and fun. Betafirm is a web development and mobile application company.
As someone who has worked with his share of designers, during my years in the web industry, I know how hard it can be to communicate something as abstract as design to another person. Therefore I was more than happy after my first talks with Matt. Matt understood precisely what I wanted and he included me early on in his initial thoughts and design drafts. All communication went through e-mail or Skype and it went smoothly. The combination of being a really nice guy, with an excellent understanding of what I wanted and his amazing design skills, has made the whole process a pleasure.
Bjørn Fridal – Founder of Betafirm
Logo and Brand Identity by VERG (Matt Vergotis)
The name had to change for this fashion label, so it’s become an unused project. I’ve since decided to make a font based on this lettering.
Logo and Brand Identity by VERG (Matt Vergotis)
Seventyseven is an iOS app consulting company that provide app design and development. The client requested a hand created typeface complimented by a graphical mark of the number 77. I decided to create this mark out of 77 dots with the focus on the 77th dot. In doing this I have manufactured a flexible device that can change shape to represent different icons associated with the company all using 77 dots.
Working with Verg was a great experience. Initially we worried about using someone from another country (us in the US, Verg in Aus) but Matt made us feel comfortable about the exchange. Dealing with timezone differences was not an issue as Matt was very available via email and Skype.
Here are some highlights from our experience:
- Creativity was top notch with our design
- Polished, thoughtful, calculated
- Bold in attempting designs
- Turn around time in artworking is quick
- Captured the brand brief details we provided
We would certainly use him for future projects.
Jason / Shamick
Founders
seventyseven
Logo and Brand Identity by VERG (Matt Vergotis)
This tasty logo is for a home delivery service delivering fresh organic food to your door step. Clients request was simple “I want it organic looking”. In Addition to the logo I created an icon set for the client to use and possibly expand on for the website products. My wife is right into feeding us and our girls organic produce, so this project was right up my ally as I felt that connection. There’s a little hidden egg in the structure of the ‘B’ & ‘E’ that represents balance. You can probably guess it, but if you can’t it’s explained in the presentation.
Logo and Brand Identity by VERG (Matt Vergotis)
My objective with this design was to create a “distinctive, fashionable, unique logo that evoked a designer image.”
To create various emotional cues that compliment the client’s service and brand values I constructed the logo with two elements: 1) The monogram mark, 2) The signature typeface.
Logo and Brand Identity by VERG (Matt Vergotis)