HUMAN INKSTINCT
2024
2024
Client: Human Inkstinct is a tattoo studio positioning itself away from the genre's defaults. Their clientele wants tattoos as art, not as decoration — work made with intent, by artists with international reputations. The brand had to live in the same room as a contemporary art gallery, not a tattoo parlour.
Assignment: Rebrand a studio whose previous identity — a fingerprint motif with the initials h.i. — had served its time. The new system needed to carry the studio's name through a stronger conceptual anchor, signal "art studio" rather than "tattoo shop," and stretch across a complete identity: logo, stationery, website, social, environmental, product.
Solution & Process: The wordmark turned on a single decision: replace the "i" in ink with the act of tattooing itself — a needle above an ink drop, drawn as an inverted exclamation mark. The mark says what the studio does, and it does so as typography, not as illustration. From there the system extends naturally. The exclamation mark detaches and works as a standalone symbol; the "h!" monogram carries the brand into tight spaces; the ink drop scatters into dot patterns and halftone fields that move through the entire identity — a direct visual reference to the medium itself. The Future (Klim Type Foundry) gives the typography its register: confident, geometric, gallery-grade rather than tattoo-shop.
Assignment: Rebrand a studio whose previous identity — a fingerprint motif with the initials h.i. — had served its time. The new system needed to carry the studio's name through a stronger conceptual anchor, signal "art studio" rather than "tattoo shop," and stretch across a complete identity: logo, stationery, website, social, environmental, product.
Solution & Process: The wordmark turned on a single decision: replace the "i" in ink with the act of tattooing itself — a needle above an ink drop, drawn as an inverted exclamation mark. The mark says what the studio does, and it does so as typography, not as illustration. From there the system extends naturally. The exclamation mark detaches and works as a standalone symbol; the "h!" monogram carries the brand into tight spaces; the ink drop scatters into dot patterns and halftone fields that move through the entire identity — a direct visual reference to the medium itself. The Future (Klim Type Foundry) gives the typography its register: confident, geometric, gallery-grade rather than tattoo-shop.
YEAR: 2024
ROLE: Art direction, visual identity, graphic design
CLIENT: Human Inkstinct
AGENCY: davidbock.agency
TYPEFACE: The Future (Klim Type Foundry)
ROLE: Art direction, visual identity, graphic design
CLIENT: Human Inkstinct
AGENCY: davidbock.agency
TYPEFACE: The Future (Klim Type Foundry)
