traufabrik
traufabrik designs wedding stationery with letterpress, hot foil and cotton paper, and almost everything that leaves the house carries other people’s names. We gave it a brand that steps back without disappearing. Quiet on the invitation, clear on the wall, and today on the website too.
- Services
- Wordmark
- Colour versions
- Merchandise: tote bags, mugs, logo panel
- Guest and travel journal
- Wordmark refinement
- Website
- Year
- 2016–2022
- Online
- traufabrik.com
A stationer works for other people’s big day. Invitation, menu and place card carry the couple’s names, and that is exactly where they belong.
Its own name moves to the margins: onto a back page, a tote bag, a mug. There it has to be quiet enough, and on the wall clear enough.
The brand is nothing but type: the name in lower case, below it the craft in letterspaced capitals, both on one axis. No ornament that could compete with the clients’ stationery.
The elegance lies in the proportions. You trust it with fine paper before you hold the first card.
- 01 / 04Lower case lets others go first. The name is set in the lower case of a fine serif. Next to a bridal couple it never pushes forward, and the generous x-height keeps it legible.
- 02 / 04The second line explains without competing. PAPETERIE is set in capitals, just under half the height of the name. You read who first, then what.
- 03 / 04Air keeps the small line open. Between the capitals, a third of their height stays free. So even when small, PAPETERIE never turns into a grey smudge.
- 04 / 04One axis holds both lines together. Name and descriptor share a centre. The brand stays calm, above a card as on the panel on the wall.
Black would be too hard next to cotton paper and silk ribbon. The grey of the brand recalls pencil and unbleached paper, warm enough for a wedding.
The supporting colours stay muted. None pushes in front of the stationery.
- 01 / 04Grey sits softer next to paper than black. Next to cotton board and silk ribbon, the grey looks like part of the paper. Not like a stamp on top of it.
- 02 / 04Itself, even in one colour. The same outlines exist for single-colour print. The brand loses nothing.
- 03 / 04On fabric the roles swap. On cotton the fabric takes over the grey, and the type turns light. It stays quiet all the same, as quiet as on paper.
- 04 / 04The companions stay in the background. Two muted tones accompany the brand, on the logo panel and on the mug. Both let the stationery go first.
On the mug the name is just under three centimetres wide, on the logo panel almost seventy. At that size, the spacing of the second line becomes a rhythm.
Where space runs short, the brand drops the second line. It knows when to keep quiet.
- 01 / 03On the mug, the name stands alone. Where space is tight, the second line goes. The name carries the brand, the handwriting above it the greeting, and neither treads on the other’s toes.
- 02 / 03On the bag, the brand steps back. Small and centred under ‘BRIDE to be’. The bag talks to the bride and still takes the sender along.
- 03 / 03On the panel, the proportions hold. Around twenty-five times as wide as on the mug, and nothing slips. For the big stage the brand needs no version of its own.
Merchandise only works if people like carrying it. So the bag speaks to the customer, not the company: ‘BRIDE to be’, with the brand small underneath.
Every bag carries the stationery a little way through town. And there were 250 of them.
An empty guest book tends to stay empty, because nobody knows how to begin. These inside pages ask: for the moment that stays, a wish for the road ahead, the couple in twenty years.
The book becomes a conversation you can have all over again, years later.
- 01 / 04The square opens wide. Guest book and travel journal share a square format. Open, there is room for handwriting, photos and drawings side by side.
- 02 / 04The spine grows with the content. Every cover fits its page count exactly. The book closes neatly, with 60 pages or 120.
- 03 / 04Questions take the fright out of the blank page. Every spread gives the guests a beginning: the moment that stays, what you always wanted to say, the couple in twenty years.
- 04 / 04A frame waits for the photo. On the right come a wish for the road ahead, a place for the snapshot and ‘With love from’. The book fills itself.
Made for paper, now also at home in a website header. We drew the brand finer and gave it air. Those who know it only notice that it looks good.
- 01 / 02The structure stayed. The name small, the craft below, both on one axis. Anyone who knows the 2016 brand recognises it at once.
- 02 / 02What is new is the air. Finer strokes, more space between the letters, in the name as in the craft. The brand breathes, on screen as on paper.
Letterpress and hot foil are made to be touched. Online only the picture remains, so every design gets plenty of white and a big stage.
Above it, the brand, calm in the centre. On the phone the calm stays, only picture and text stack up.
Planning something similar? info@vertikahl.com