Tick tock! newkid’s time-sensitive identity for 1HOUR–AFTER promotes the skincare brand’s urgency — The Brand Identity – Home of the Greatest in Graphic & Brand Design

Marking the company’s first in-house brand after 30 years of business, Petra Soap saw a market in post-workout skin and body care, subsequently launching 1HOUR-AFTER (1HR-A) in collaboration with Torontonian branding studio newkid, who led the project’s visual output.

Responding to the time-sensitive nature of the product line – whereby its toiletries are optimised to support one’s hair and skin in their most tender state – newkid turned to temporal cues across the brand, creating systems and graphic structures based on countdowns, clocks and timings. The result is a palpable yet refined sense of urgency, whereby the theme of activity and, ultimately, urgency, is tonally brought front and centre – a notion even addressed in the pressing nature of the brand name, the high-visibility orange hues, and the countdown-esque line system throughout the packaging and printed materials.

Again referencing the clock-ready influences behind the brand, as well as the expert technical nature of 1HR-A’s offering, newkid opted for the monospace sans serif Mono Spec, from Halbfett Type Foundry, as the hero typeface; bringing with it the extensive family’s industrial edge. “The individual characters of this mono-style share a common width,” ​​Co-founder, Art Director & Designer Rich Brown tells us, “that help support the rhythmic feeling of the horizontal line system.”

We took a conscious decision to solely use Mono Spec across all of the brand,” Brown continues, “this single-minded approach allowed us to create a more ownable and impactful design aesthetic,” whilst somewhat steering clear of the industry’s visual tropes. “While many cosmetic brands place emphasis solely on typography,” he explains, “we wanted to place emphasis on our overall graphic system,” one recognisable and unique to 1HR-A. “The horizontal line system became a visual framework,” he details, dictating the size and placement of its typographic features. “The overall feeling is certainly a minimal one,” Brown concludes, “but hopefully memorable as well.”