High Tide’s technical, typographic identity for Sijo draws inspiration from jacquard punch cards

Sijo is New York’s eminent health-conscious bedding and sleepwear brand, founded with the intention of affordably enhancing and improving one’s sleep through innovative, low-impact and luxury materials. Having such a multitude of contexts – from their environmentally-friendly materials and focus on physical health to their contrasting affordable price range and high-end intentions – Sijo were in need of a meticulous identity to balance these aims and correctly align their offering; turning to NYC-based design studio High Tide to do so.

Also working across their ambitious strategic intentions, social media output, web design and packaging, High Tide looked towards the technology and technicality behind the brand as inspiration for its typographic branding system. Crafting a detail-led tactile identity optimised for both digital and physical spaces.

“The main inspiration behind the visuals were jacquard punch cards,” Creative Director Danny Miller tells us, a technological breakthrough originating from the early 1800s in France, which allowed textile workers to easily weave complex patterns. “The jacquard weaving machine was a predecessor to the first computer and we were intrigued by this early connection between technology and fabric,” Miller explains, “we took visual inspiration from these punch cards and created a graphic language dot system,” he adds, manifesting as randomly generated dot patterns. “This language represents the technological side of the Sijo brand,” he suggests, “and helps communicate science and precision in a very fresh and ownable way.”

High Tide similarly represented this technicality through a dextrous choice of typefaces, opting for Lineto’s monospace Autoscape for the brand’s wordmark. “It felt like a natural choice,” Miller recalls, “as a bedding and sleepwear brand that has roots in technology and material innovation, the mechanical and precise feel of the typeface was a great fit.” The suitability of Autoscape goes a step further via the wordmark’s modular operation, whereby it transforms across different physical and digital touchpoints; a flexibility well suited to Autoscape’s monospaced architecture. “The utilitarian feel of the mark is then balanced with the warmth of LL Bradford,” Miller notes, also from Lineto, creating a powerful tension between technology and personality. “It helps to reflect what the brand is about,” he remarks, “using technology to create a framework for something very personal and intimate… your sleep.”

Sijo’s extended visual identity is founded on the pragmatic use of Colophon Foundry’s Basis Grotesque family, and its interplay with High Tide’s colour and material choices – utilising cardboard throughout in reference to the traditionally heavy unbleached paper construction of jacquard punch cards. “The Sijo colour palette was inspired by the serenity of dawn and the energy of dusk,” Miller explains, developing a comprehensive range of hues that vary in bright natural tones and warm saturated colours. “This spectrum of warm to cool also ties in nicely to the heating/cooling technology used in their fabrics,” Miller concludes, dutifully tying together the brand’s symbiotic characteristics of science and sophistication.

High Tide

Sijo