Parker’s free-flowing identity for Keeps emphasises the furniture brand’s sustainable context

American furniture brand Keeps launched to marry quality and sustainability within their competitive industry, trusting their audience will always turn to beautiful, considered furniture that values the planet and the people involved across their design and production process. Looking to express these principles through their identity, Keeps turned to Seattle-based creative studio Parker; resulting in a visual language as purposely and aesthetically crafted as the furniture itself.

Typographically led, Keeps’ identity revolves around a bespoke typeface from Parker, laying the foundations for the brand whilst also leading the way. “Keeps’ wordmark is based on a custom-designed typeface, Keeps Sans,” Creative Director Tyler Eide tells us, noting, “the wordmark can be punched out directly within that font.” The typeface in question features candid angles and exaggerated, imperfect curves across the design of its letterforms, resulting in a fundamentally accessible, organic hand-rendered tone. The expertise behind Keeps’ products, on the other hand, is established through the combination of Pangram Pangram’s Editorial New as the feature serif typeface and Colophon Foundry’s Mabry for supporting body text – providing editorial sincerity and amenability when applied in tandem.

Bolstering the bold typographic design is the running theme of nature and organic forms, as well as a modernist contrast between the two. This is prominently evident in the use of colour, which is implemented across the brand and in situ with product photography. “Keeps’ colour selections contrast and compliment the natural colours of the product,” Eide explains, “and the plant life present in the photography,” he adds, “providing a bit of a punch via the orange,” as seen across the digital and physical spaces of the identity, the latter of which opts for purely recycled paper stocks.

The visually free-flowing theme is further emboldened within Keep’s digital spaces, manifesting in rounded, imperfect containers for imagery. “Andrew, Keeps’ primary product designer,” Eide recalls, “was inspired by beautiful sculpture art when developing the line,” particularly sculptures crafted from natural, raw materials. “To reflect this, we added a hand-hewn feel to the brand,” Eide concludes, “which shows up in both Keeps Sans as well as the use of small organic edges in the photography frames.”

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Keeps