Ian Cook
Postman Jack t-shirt tag Postman Jack typemark variations Postman Jack rings composition Sydney icon with texture Fabric print mockup Redfern concept main Redfern early concepts

Postman Jack

Role Brand Designer
Year 2019
Scope Brand, Identity, Print

Postman Jack is a startup in Sydney, looking to sell clothes and accessories branded by suburb.

Identity

I worked with them to clarify their brand mission — products that represent a neighbourhood with a sense of that place and its people.

With that in mind, I steered away from postal imagery (which had been suggested) to avoid any confusion with a delivery service. I landed on the postmark — it communicates where something comes from and opened up multiple directions from there.

I created two sets of assets: a clean version and one with a print-like texture to mimic the stamp found on a letter or package. They were thrilled.

Redfern concept

After completing the master brand, I wanted to go further and design branding for one of the suburbs they were planning to use. I opted for Redfern — a suburb with a colourful history and, at the time, my home of four and a half years.

The Aboriginal history of the suburb made the colour palette a straightforward decision: red, black and yellow. Two of my favourite techniques — isometric and halftone — both turned out to work well here.

Using the letter R, I built an isometric form to apply the three colours across its visible planes. The halftone pattern I used was more organic than geometric, which sits nicely against the clean lines of the R shape.