Mist Thermal Sanctuary
Brand Identity System
Bowen Island, Canada
Rooted in the quiet heart of Bowen Island, Mist offers private sauna, cold plunge, outdoor showers and fire pits. Creating a space to disconnect from the noise and reconnect with yourself and with nature.
The identity is built from the ground up. Spanning strategy, visual direction, web, signage, packaging, and merch.
It draws from the atmospheric mist that moves through British Columbia’s forests and coastline, and from the four elements themselves: fire, water, earth, and air. Each plays a role in shaping the experience and the visual language, grounding the brand in nature and the rituals that come with it.
The identity is built from the ground up. Spanning strategy, visual direction, web, signage, packaging, and merch.
It draws from the atmospheric mist that moves through British Columbia’s forests and coastline, and from the four elements themselves: fire, water, earth, and air. Each plays a role in shaping the experience and the visual language, grounding the brand in nature and the rituals that come with it.
Credits:
Copywriting – Mimi Young
Photography – Jenna Pullen, Jeanie Ow
Copywriting – Mimi Young
Photography – Jenna Pullen, Jeanie Ow
SRAM — Force AXS
Campaign Identity
Vancouver, Canada
SRAM's Force AXS brings revolutionary wireless electronic shifting technology down from professional racing to the passionate enthusiast level. Where Red AXS defined the ceiling, Force AXS made that technology accessible - delivering intuitive wireless shifting, customizable controls, and seamless integration across road and gravel without compromise.
The challenge was articulating what changes when friction disappears. When cables and mechanical limitations are removed, riding transforms. Shifts happen at the speed of thought. Your position on the bars no longer dictates your gearing options.
New Physics. Not just wireless. Not just electronic. A fundamental rewrite of the relationship between rider and machine, where the old rules - the compromises, the limitations - simply no longer apply.
Our task was to build a campaign identity that made this invisible revolution visible. To show that Force AXS isn't an upgrade to the old system - it's an entirely different framework for how bikes work.
The challenge was articulating what changes when friction disappears. When cables and mechanical limitations are removed, riding transforms. Shifts happen at the speed of thought. Your position on the bars no longer dictates your gearing options.
New Physics. Not just wireless. Not just electronic. A fundamental rewrite of the relationship between rider and machine, where the old rules - the compromises, the limitations - simply no longer apply.
Our task was to build a campaign identity that made this invisible revolution visible. To show that Force AXS isn't an upgrade to the old system - it's an entirely different framework for how bikes work.
Credits:
Creative Direction — Good Fortune Collective
3D Production — Studio Tendril
Creative Direction — Good Fortune Collective
3D Production — Studio Tendril
Mountain Joe
Brand & Packaging Design
Banff, Canada
The 'Shaft' cocktail was a Banff sensation that outsold beer, but it was only available on tap. Our collaboration with Park Distillery created a name, brand, and packaging to bring this beloved drink to a convenient canned format.
Park Distillery sits at the base of Mount Rundle in the heart of Banff. This iconic mountain's distinctive profile became the foundation of the can's design, connecting place with product.
The brand's color palette pays homage to Parks Canada ranger uniforms, creating an identity that feels like an intrinsic extension of the Rockies.
While the beverage comes in a compact can, the brand's attitude is anything but small - channeling the energy and spirit of Banff's après culture.
Park Distillery sits at the base of Mount Rundle in the heart of Banff. This iconic mountain's distinctive profile became the foundation of the can's design, connecting place with product.
The brand's color palette pays homage to Parks Canada ranger uniforms, creating an identity that feels like an intrinsic extension of the Rockies.
While the beverage comes in a compact can, the brand's attitude is anything but small - channeling the energy and spirit of Banff's après culture.
Credits:
Creative Direction — Glasfurd & Walker
Photography — Ian Lanterman & Park Distillery
Creative Direction — Glasfurd & Walker
Photography — Ian Lanterman & Park Distillery
Crypto Autos
Brand Identity System
Dubai, UAE
Crypto Autos is the world's first luxury car marketplace that accepts crypto currency payments. We gave their brand a thorough uplift to connect the brand to it's core pillars of luxury, lifestyle, and technology.
A brand with flex and range to work across all manner of mediums from social and print assets, to web experiences, car wraps and live events.
We also developed a campaign and sub-brand for their native token, $AUTOS, which raised 4.4 million USD in 4.5 hours.
A brand with flex and range to work across all manner of mediums from social and print assets, to web experiences, car wraps and live events.
We also developed a campaign and sub-brand for their native token, $AUTOS, which raised 4.4 million USD in 4.5 hours.
Credits:
Creative Direction — Michael Hindle
Creative Direction — Michael Hindle
Brassica
Brand Identity System
Gibsons, Canada
Brassica is a farm-to-table restaurant in Gibsons, British Columbia, on the Sunshine Coast. The name 'brassica' refers to the genus of plants in the cabbage and mustard family - vegetables that form the foundation of their seasonal, locally-sourced menu.
We developed a brand identity that celebrates the restaurant's approachable yet thoughtful approach to farm-to-table dining. Working with illustrator Estée Preda, we personified the vegetables to bring a playful and whimsical quality to the brand, capturing their philosophy that healthy food doesn't need to take itself too seriously.
The identity extends beyond the menu and collateral into the physical space itself. Even the restaurant signage drew from the layered structure of a cabbage - constructed from three stacked layers of wood that create depth and dimension, echoing the natural forms that inspire the cuisine.
The result is a brand that feels rooted in the Sunshine Coast's agricultural landscape while maintaining the warmth and personality that defines the Brassica dining experience.
We developed a brand identity that celebrates the restaurant's approachable yet thoughtful approach to farm-to-table dining. Working with illustrator Estée Preda, we personified the vegetables to bring a playful and whimsical quality to the brand, capturing their philosophy that healthy food doesn't need to take itself too seriously.
The identity extends beyond the menu and collateral into the physical space itself. Even the restaurant signage drew from the layered structure of a cabbage - constructed from three stacked layers of wood that create depth and dimension, echoing the natural forms that inspire the cuisine.
The result is a brand that feels rooted in the Sunshine Coast's agricultural landscape while maintaining the warmth and personality that defines the Brassica dining experience.
Credits:
Creative Direction — Glasfurd & Walker
Photography — Leila Kwok
Illustration – Estée Preda
Creative Direction — Glasfurd & Walker
Photography — Leila Kwok
Illustration – Estée Preda
Lab Theory
Brand Identity & Photography
Vancouver, Canada
Lab Theory is Rubicon Organics' premium cannabis concentrate brand, positioned as the most expensive product on the market at launch. The challenge: create a brand that felt genuinely premium in a category where "premium" had become meaningless, while speaking to the drop culture of legacy cannabis and streetwear.
The concentrates themselves gave us the answer. The extraction process is precise, clinical, methodical – but the experience is anything but. We leaned into that duality, combining laboratory rigour with psychedelic experimentation. Working with a 3D artist, we developed morphing gradient textures that evolve across products, paired with extreme macro photography of the actual concentrates in petri dishes.
The result is a visual system that works on two levels: eye-catching enough to stand out on dispensary shelves, clinical enough to communicate quality and process at point of sale.
The concentrates themselves gave us the answer. The extraction process is precise, clinical, methodical – but the experience is anything but. We leaned into that duality, combining laboratory rigour with psychedelic experimentation. Working with a 3D artist, we developed morphing gradient textures that evolve across products, paired with extreme macro photography of the actual concentrates in petri dishes.
The result is a visual system that works on two levels: eye-catching enough to stand out on dispensary shelves, clinical enough to communicate quality and process at point of sale.
Credits:
Creative Direction — Skeleton Crew Creative Studio
3D Artist – Valentin Heinrich
Creative Direction — Skeleton Crew Creative Studio
3D Artist – Valentin Heinrich
Wild Blue
Brand Identity System
Whistler, Canada
Wild Blue is a restaurant and bar in Whistler offering upscale, seafood-forward Pacific Northwest cuisine. Opening in August 2022 under the leadership of Iron Chef winner Alex Chen and an exceptional team of hospitality veterans, the restaurant quickly established itself as a destination for elevated dining in the mountains.
We were tasked with defining the brand identity from initial concept to final execution of signage, menus and website. The strategy stems from capturing the precision of the food they serve through a refined custom wordmark that subtly nods to the sea in its typographic forms. The identity carries this forward through simple yet refined menus and signage with meticulous attention to texture and materiality - mirroring the restaurant's focus on sustainable seafood and locally-sourced ingredients.
Wild Blue has been a resounding success, named #2 Canada's Best New Restaurant in enRoute / Air Canada Magazine and #4 Best New Restaurant on Canada's 100 Best List, with an overall #31 ranking for 2024.
We were tasked with defining the brand identity from initial concept to final execution of signage, menus and website. The strategy stems from capturing the precision of the food they serve through a refined custom wordmark that subtly nods to the sea in its typographic forms. The identity carries this forward through simple yet refined menus and signage with meticulous attention to texture and materiality - mirroring the restaurant's focus on sustainable seafood and locally-sourced ingredients.
Wild Blue has been a resounding success, named #2 Canada's Best New Restaurant in enRoute / Air Canada Magazine and #4 Best New Restaurant on Canada's 100 Best List, with an overall #31 ranking for 2024.
Credits:
Creative Direction — Glasfurd & Walker
Photography — Leila Kwok
Creative Direction — Glasfurd & Walker
Photography — Leila Kwok
Studio Brewing
Packaging System
Burnaby, Canada
When Studio Brewing set out to launch Burnaby's first craft brewery, they had ambitious plans: constantly rotating taps, limited-run experiments, and a release schedule that demanded flexibility from day one.
The brand needed to work as hard as they did. We extracted the thick-thin contrast from the Studio wordmark and built a custom numeral system around it. Each beer gets its own number, creating a simple, endlessly adaptable labeling system that keeps pace with their experimentation while maintaining a consistent visual language.
The result is a brand that stands out in the Lower Mainland's crowded brewery scene not through complexity, but through a graphic system refined to its essentials—bold, flexible, and as straightforward as the brewery itself.
The brand needed to work as hard as they did. We extracted the thick-thin contrast from the Studio wordmark and built a custom numeral system around it. Each beer gets its own number, creating a simple, endlessly adaptable labeling system that keeps pace with their experimentation while maintaining a consistent visual language.
The result is a brand that stands out in the Lower Mainland's crowded brewery scene not through complexity, but through a graphic system refined to its essentials—bold, flexible, and as straightforward as the brewery itself.
Credits:
Creative Direction — Skeleton Crew Creative Studio
Photography — Maksee
Creative Direction — Skeleton Crew Creative Studio
Photography — Maksee
Yeti Cycles
Campaign Art Direction
Colorado, US
When Yeti Cycles recalculated infinity with their redesigned Switch Infinity suspension system, the SB140-160 range needed a launch that matched its technical ambition.
The campaign centred on a simple premise: in these bikes, the old rules don't apply.
Working with 3D artist Plastic Bionic, we created three otherworldly landscapes where familiar terrain had mutated into something alien. Desert trails bloom with oversized succulent formations and crystalline cacti. Flora scales beyond reason, twisting into sculptural forms that feel both organic and impossible.
The real and the surreal exist in the same frame—recognizable enough to be a ride, strange enough to be a new world entirely.
Each environment visualized what "new normal" means when engineering fundamentals shift: nature doesn't break, it evolves into forms that shouldn't exist but somehow do.
The result was a visual language that translated Yeti's technical innovation into landscapes where the rules of scale, growth, and possibility have been quietly, beautifully rewritten.
The campaign centred on a simple premise: in these bikes, the old rules don't apply.
Working with 3D artist Plastic Bionic, we created three otherworldly landscapes where familiar terrain had mutated into something alien. Desert trails bloom with oversized succulent formations and crystalline cacti. Flora scales beyond reason, twisting into sculptural forms that feel both organic and impossible.
The real and the surreal exist in the same frame—recognizable enough to be a ride, strange enough to be a new world entirely.
Each environment visualized what "new normal" means when engineering fundamentals shift: nature doesn't break, it evolves into forms that shouldn't exist but somehow do.
The result was a visual language that translated Yeti's technical innovation into landscapes where the rules of scale, growth, and possibility have been quietly, beautifully rewritten.
Credits:
Creative Direction —Good Fortune Collective
3D Artist – Plastic Bionic
Photographers – Dave Trumpore , Eyeroam, Ben Page
Retouching – Cassey Kerrick
Creative Direction —Good Fortune Collective
3D Artist – Plastic Bionic
Photographers – Dave Trumpore , Eyeroam, Ben Page
Retouching – Cassey Kerrick
Research & Play
Creative Experiments
As the world continues to evolve and technology ever-advances, and important part of my process and development is setting structured time to play, freely. Without the confines of a brief. Intuitive experimentation and learning. From AI tools, motion experiments, image creation, typography, and photography.
This is where ideas can breathe and be their own.
And if you like what you see – i'm sure we can work something into a project!
This is where ideas can breathe and be their own.
And if you like what you see – i'm sure we can work something into a project!
Benjamin Smith
I build brand identity systems for founders who care about how their business shows up in the world. My work blends story, place, product and narrative into systems that scale.
I create brands that feel human and rooted in who you are, while working everywhere from real-life moments to digital experiences.
Have a project in mind?
Get in touch at benj@benj-design.com
Services
Brand Identity
Brand Discovery & Positioning
Brand Identity Systems
Visual Language Development (patterns, illustration, photography direction)
Brand Guidelines / Brand Book
Applied Design
Packaging Design
Web Design & Development (Webflow)
Animation / Motion Graphics
Social Media & Marketing
Environmental
Creative Direction
Brand Direction / Ongoing support
Campaign Creative Direction
Art Direction
Brand Support
Brand Audits & Consulting
Identity Refresh (refining existing brands)












































































