IYA Studio let the materials do the talking in their refined and recycled identity for Handle

Innovative start-up Handle brings into question not only our consumer-driven culture, but the inclination we have for disposal. In a unique circular business plan, Handle uses the waste from the beauty industry as the building block materials for their products; repurposing a vast array of materials collected from consumers, salons and retailers to be recycled and repurposed for the handles of their objects. If that’s not enough to impress, they also sell back any unused components to their manufacturers.

Brought on from the very beginning, London-based IYA Studio have crafted an equally amalgamated identity that thrives on the unpredictable and captivating textures, forms and patterns created from compressed, rescued materials – a process that was also informative of future design considerations. “We let the product materials largely inform the colours,” IYA Studio’s Creative Director Matt Cottis explains, “taking reference from the compressed materials, so from the simple primary black and greys to flecks of the colours in the brighter materials.”

Tying together IYA Studio’s combination of delicacy and disarray is their notable choice of typefaces; opting for Colophon Foundry’s Mabry and the classic serif Plantin. “We were really keen to use a sans with some personality and approachability,” Cottis recalls, “alongside something more classic,” relating somewhat to the broad range of beauty packaging being combined together. In pairing the chosen sans serif and serif typefaces together, IYA Studio’s work also references the amalgamation of differing elements, and in doing so similarly finding the beauty behind them – creating an identity that blossoms in the refined and the recycled.

IYA Studio

Handle