MHM Architect is the studio of independent Canadian architect Maxine H. Marcovitch who, working with a team of professionals, trade and closely with clients, creates “beautiful, innovative, and unconventional architectural spaces.” The studio’s new brand identity, developed by 26 Lettres and which included a logotype, blind embossed business cards, portfolio with open stitch detail and website, delivers a familiar but appropriate resolution of architectural cues.

The monogram makes the most of the geometric qualities of Maxine’s initials by rendering them as uppercase letterforms with stencil cut detail and utilising these in print as an oversized element to convey a simple, confident and structural integrity that could easily be perceived as beams and braces or reflective of space and layout. The structure established by the monogram continues through to a grid-based arrangement of the business cards and the uppercase, single point size and weight of a non-hierarchical approach to typesetting.

A combination of blind emboss and metallic copper strokes, forming illusory contours and the aesthetic detail of the tote bags, as well as the open stitch of the portfolio, neatly unite tactile surface texture, light and shadow, the copper of pipes and a truth to production that feels appropriate for an architecture studio.

The result is a relatively straightforward combination of few assets but there is enough detail, spread across type, material and finish to keep it from becoming logo-centric or communicatively one-dimensional.