Sometimes Always’ multi-faceted identity for Miilkiina is cool, complex and considered

Since mid-2019, creative agency and online creative space Miilkiina, based in Dubai, Milan and New York, have been working with São Paulo and Berlin-based design studio Sometimes Always in designing and developing their visual identity, which launched in April 2020.

With Miilkiina being such an ambidextrous and diverse outlet – acting as an avant-garde digital newspaper, educational hub, a network for artistic conversation, as well as a creative agency – Sometimes Always had a lot to comprehend in creating a representative but cohesive identity. With geographical inspiration from Middle Eastern and Western arts (representative of the company itself), alongside traditional broadsheet mastheads, Sometimes Always has successfully achieved what they set out to do – creating a phenomenally striking and dynamic identity that manages to be both artistically expressive and graphically flexible.

“The client wanted to have an identity that would assemble classic newspapers (New York Times, Le Monde, etc),” Gabriel Finotti, the founder of Sometimes Always tells us, “but that could speak and live in its time.” The resulting culmination of blackletter, sans and serif typefaces reacting with a digital mixed media of shapes, outlines, blocks and photographic overlays, results in a final identity (spanning print and digital) that manages to be visually complex yet very accessible. Having a newspaper that holds not only the latter but also multiple alignments and off-grid elements is what led to the decision to keep the identity monochromatic. Finotti explains that “the photographs would play a huge part in the compositions,” and that altogether “there was absolutely no need for colours.”

A key element to the identity is its versatility, Finotti reveals that “all their media channels should work as a magazine, so we approached everything, no matter if it was the website or social media or print assets from an editorial perspective.” This attention to detail and appreciation of print is clear in its digital design, rife with references to page furniture and editorial practices. These editorial necessities led to the use of Grilli Type’s GT America due to its extensive family, pairing its Compressed Bold weight with Chomsky for primary titles, as well as numerous variations with ITC Clearface and the rest of the GT America family.

Sometimes Always

Miilkiina