Skip to content
Shipyard Studios

Brand identityClient project

Cosa Nostra

A visual identity for a London strength and conditioning club. Two complete directions, one locked.

A club built on turning up and doing the work needed an identity with the same posture. The first direction was built out across 28 pages before it became clear it was solving for a running club. The second one was right.

Role
Delivered by Shipyard. Brand strategy, identity design, two full directions, guidelines and master artwork.
Timeline
2026
Delivered
Four marks, 28-page guidelines, 20 master files
Cosa Nostra interlock wordmark: Cosa and Nostra in off-white fraktur lettering on overlapping baselines

The Interlock, primary wordmark, set in UnifrakturCook 700

Complete directions developed
2
Pages of guidelines for direction one
28
Marks in the final family
4
Master files delivered
20

The brief

An identity with the club's posture

Cosa Nostra is a London strength and conditioning club for people who treat turning up as the minimum.

The club runs structured training plans and weekly sessions, and its own positioning is blunt: family over following, not a content channel. Members are there to train, and the identity had to feel like it belonged in the room with them.

The category default points the other way. Fitness branding tends towards wellness language, rounded marks and reassurance. This identity had to reject that without tipping into the other cliché, aggressive gym graphics.

Guidelines page setting out the Cosa Nostra positioning and four pillars: discipline, community, ownership and honesty
Positioning and pillars, as documented for the club.

Direction one

A track-club system, built out in full

The first direction took its mark from the running the club does, and was specified across 28 pages.

The O in NOSTRA became an aerial running track, a device used once and never decoratively. The stadium lanes were then lifted out of the mark to work as pattern and texture.

Around it sat a five-logo family with clear space and minimum sizes, a locked five-colour palette, a three-family type hierarchy, a 48 by 48 icon grid, and a social system split into training, session and brand posts with fixed templates for each.

Brand guidelines cover
Guidelines v1.0, 28 pages.
Primary logo page with the stadium-O mechanic
The stadium-O in the primary wordmark.
Colour palette page: Jet, Electric, Hazard, Bone and Asphalt
Five colours with print references.
Headline typography page specifying Space Grotesk 700
Space Grotesk 700 for display.

Direction one palette

  • Jet#0B0B0BGround
  • Electric#F7E94BAccent
  • Hazard#FF4A00Alerts and calls to action
  • Bone#EDEDEDBody on dark
  • Asphalt#3A3A3ADividers

Applications

Pressure-tested on what the club makes

Apparel, patches, race bibs, posters, merchandise and signage were all specified with placements, sizes and finishes. The simplified mark exists because the full one cannot survive embroidery.

Presentation concepts, not produced

These pages come from the guidelines document. They show how the system applies and do not show manufactured goods, print runs or installed signage.

Apparel application: tee, hoodie and cap placements
Apparel: chest mark, back wordmark, embroidered cap.
Patch concepts: woven, embroidered and moulded rubber
Patches: woven, embroidered and moulded rubber.
Race bib and poster application
Race bib and session posters.
Environmental application: banner, gym signage and finish-line board
Environment: banner, signage and finish-line board.

A complete system is not automatically the right one.

The key decision

Start again

Direction one was coherent and thoroughly specified, and it read as a track club.

The further it went, the more it committed to running as the subject, when the club is strength and conditioning with running inside it. Shipping it would have meant a polished identity for the wrong club.

The second direction started from a different premise: drop the illustrative mechanic entirely and let the letterforms carry the whole personality. No icon, no device, no accent colour to hide behind.

The final identity

One typeface, four marks, no decoration

The locked system is built entirely from UnifrakturCook 700, a rounded fraktur that carries heritage and menace without the ceremony of formal blackletter.

Interlock wordmark in off-white on near-black
Primary: off-white on near-black, on every surface by default.
Interlock wordmark in black on cream
Secondary: black on cream, for paper goods and hangtags.
  • Off-white#F2EDDDPrimary fill
  • Near-black#0C0C0CPrimary ground
  • Cream#E8E2D0Paper goods
  • The Interlock mark

    The Interlock

    Primary wordmark. Cosa overlapping Nostra.

  • The Stack mark

    The Stack

    Default monogram for avatars, labels and patches.

  • Side-by-side mark

    Side-by-side

    For wide spaces where height is short.

  • Vertical mark

    Vertical

    Two upright columns with a rule between.

Delivered

Master artwork the club can use without us

Twenty master files: the four marks as transparent PNG, solid-ground JPEG and source SVG at 3000 pixels on the longest edge, in both colour treatments. The SVG masters recolour from a single documented value, so the marks stay usable after handover.

  • Two directions is not indecision

    The first system had to be built out properly before it was obvious it was solving for running rather than for the club. That is what exploration costs, and it is cheaper than finding out after launch.

  • Constraint became the identity

    Removing the icon, the accent colour and the device left the letterforms nowhere to hide, which is exactly why the final mark holds at patch size and at poster size.

Building something like this?

Tell us what you have in mind. You will get an honest view of scope, sequence and cost.

Start a project

Next project

Resoled

An authenticated sneaker and streetwear resale marketplace, live on the web, the App Store and Google Play.