Architecture Studio Rebrand - Dubai | Switzerland

Client SC Design+

Year 2017

Role / Service Branding

Project Link —

Samuel Creations now SC Design+ is a Swiss-based architecture and interior design firm with forty years of heritage in rendering and realising spaces for corporate and hospitality clients. Four decades of accumulated expertise, an international reputation built project by project, and a studio expanding its reach beyond its established European base. What the firm did not have was a brand identity equal to its ambitions. Mike Rock Studio was commissioned to rebrand the studio completely — delivering a new identity, a custom typeface, an iconography system, and comprehensive guidelines for a design firm preparing to compete at the highest international level.

The Challenge

Designing for a designer is the most demanding brief there is. A studio with forty years of experience rendering architectural and interior spaces for some of the world's most discerning corporate and hospitality clients will evaluate every typographic decision, every proportion, every spacing choice with the same critical eye they apply to their own work. There is no room for the kind of creative shortcuts that might pass unnoticed in other sectors. Every element of the identity had to be resolved to the standard of a firm that has spent four decades thinking about the built environment in precise, considered detail.

The international expansion imperative added a specific strategic challenge. SC Design+ needed a brand that could walk into a conversation with a Zürich developer, a Dubai hospitality group, or a London corporate client and be immediately recognised as the work of a serious, established studio — without requiring the forty-year backstory to be told every time. The identity needed to carry that heritage visibly, in the quality of its execution rather than in explicit statements about longevity.

The rebrand from Samuel Creations to SC Design+ was itself a significant step, a name evolution that signalled a more expansive, internationally oriented practice while preserving the initials that connect the new identity to the reputation the studio had already built.

The Approach

The strategic foundation was precision - the quality that defines both Swiss design culture and the practice of architecture itself. Switzerland has a specific and extraordinary relationship with typographic and visual design: the International Typographic Style, the grid, the systematic organisation of visual information into something that is simultaneously functional and beautiful. For a Swiss studio expanding internationally, that heritage was not a constraint but an asset, one that needed to be honoured in the execution of the identity without being made explicit as a reference.

The custom typeface was the most significant creative decision of the project. A bespoke typeface designed specifically for SC Design+ does something that no licensed font can: it gives the studio a typographic voice that is entirely its own, unreplicable by competitors and immediately recognisable as the expression of a specific creative intelligence. For a design firm, the typeface is also a demonstration of capability, a signal to clients that the studio's understanding of form, proportion, and visual language extends to the most fundamental level of graphic communication.

The iconography system extended that precision across the functional communications of the studio, a cohesive set of marks developed to work consistently across architecture, interior design, and the rendering specialisms that have defined SC Design+ for four decades. The guidelines were built to support an internationally distributed studio: comprehensive enough that the identity applies with the same quality across Zürich, Dubai, or any market the expansion takes the studio into.

The Work

Brand Identity:

A complete visual identity for SC Design+ refined logomark, colour system, and the visual language of a forty-year Swiss design studio prepared for international competition. Every proportion considered, every detail resolved.

Custom Typeface Design:

A bespoke typeface designed exclusively for SC Design+ giving the studio a typographic voice that is entirely its own. The most technically demanding deliverable of the project and the most distinctive asset of the rebrand.

Iconography System:

A cohesive set of icons developed to work consistently across SC Design+'s architecture, interior design, and rendering communications, precise, functional, and built on the same visual logic as the identity.

Brand Guidelines:

A comprehensive guidelines document covering every application of the SC Design+ identity developed for a studio operating across multiple international markets and requiring the same standard of execution at every point of contact.

The Outcome:

SC Design+ enters its next chapter with a brand identity that reflects the quality and precision of the studio it represents — and a custom typeface that no competitor can replicate. The rebrand positions the studio credibly for the international corporate and hospitality briefs it is pursuing, carrying forty years of earned expertise in a visual language that communicates it without needing to explain it.

Designing for a designer requires that every decision be right. These were.

Project Details:

Services: Brand Identity · Custom Typeface Design · Iconography · Brand Guidelines

Industry: Architecture · Interior Design · Design Studio

Location: Switzerland

Market: International Corporate · Global Hospitality · European Architecture

Project FAQ

What does it mean to design a brand identity for a design studio?

It means every decision is visible to the most critical possible audience. A design studio evaluates every typographic choice, every proportion, every spacing decision with the same professional eye they apply to their own work which means there is no room for the creative shortcuts that might pass unnoticed in other sectors. Designing for a designer requires that the identity be resolved to the highest possible standard at every level: not approximately right, not good enough, but genuinely correct. It is the most demanding brief in brand identity design, and the most gratifying when done properly.

What is a custom typeface and why would a design studio commission one?

A custom typeface is a typographic system designed exclusively for a single brand built from the ground up rather than selected from an existing font library. For a design studio, a bespoke typeface is both a functional asset and a demonstration of capability: it gives the studio a typographic voice that is entirely its own, unreplicable by any competitor, and immediately recognisable as the expression of a specific creative intelligence. In the architecture and interior design sector, where visual precision is the product, a custom typeface signals that the studio's understanding of form and proportion extends to the most fundamental level of graphic communication. It is the most technically demanding deliverable in brand identity design and the most distinctively theirs.

How do you rebrand a heritage design firm for international expansion?

By making the heritage visible in the quality of execution rather than in explicit statements about longevity. A studio with forty years of expertise does not need to announce it it needs to demonstrate it through the precision, resolution, and considered craft of every element of its identity. The rebrand needs to carry the accumulated credibility of the existing name while signalling that the studio is moving forward: broader in scope, more internationally oriented, and ready for the markets it is entering. For SC Design+, the transition from Samuel Creations preserved the equity of the initials while opening the identity to a more expansive international positioning — without losing the thread of continuity that forty years of reputation represents.