A personal brand run like a client job: mark, type, print and site.
A designer’s own identity can iterate forever — nothing forces the lock.
- Sketched, then locked the skull-key mark
- Wrote the rulebook: mark, type stack, print specs
- Printed the booklet; designed and coded the site
- ROLE
- Identity, type, print, site — solo
- JURY
- Paula Scher, Jacob Cass, Bill Kenney + nine more
- YEAR
- 2025 · ongoing
- STACK
- Paper · code · print, 8″ × 8″, saddle-stitched
- SITE
- kenneys.net — V3 on the press
LogoLounge Book 15
Run my own identity like a client job
- I worked in a client’s order: moodboard, sketches, then the lock.
- The moodboard pulled from previous logos, music lettering and internet-era pictorials.
- The sketches tried cursive wordmarks and skull pictorials before the key, skull, MK and crack combined.
Make one mark survive every size
- The mark had to hold at a 16px favicon and on a die-cut card.
- The rulebook exists so every new surface answers to the same decisions.
- Stationery, the booklet and kenneys.net all check against that one rulebook.
- The booklet ties the earlier YouTube work to the studio identity in one visual language.
Separate recognition from business results
- The LogoLounge selection is juried, not self-declared.
- Four paid clients arrived in ninety days. I do not credit that number to the identity.
THE BOOKLET — the mark in print: taste became rules.
THE SKETCHES
- LEARNED
- A principle beats a mood: it settled every debate a moodboard would have reopened.
- DECIDED
- The system has to do the talking: one mark, one rulebook, every surface accountable to it.
BOOKLET3D.TSX — the booklet as a CSS 3D object.
THE MARK — ten teeth: MATTKENNEY, ten letters.
THE KIT — palette and type ramp.
THE KIT PIECES — components and spacing rhythm.
THE HERO — trusted for over 10 years.
FROM FOUNDATION TO ECOSYSTEM — three engagements.
THE CTA AT 375 — Ideas need intention. Let’s build yours.
THE BOOKING PAGE — Claim the slot.
SEVEN PASSES — the month grid, from the page to a modal.
- DECIDED
- Designed not to be your standard utilitarian calendar scheduler.
THE FOOTER — the wordmark, set heavy.
LIVE TODAY — the coming-soon gate; V3 is on the press.
HOBBIES & INTERESTS, PART II
THE YOUTUBE ERA
BOOK 15 — Badge of Honor Award, 2025.
“Congratulations! Well deserved. It was an honour judging the Logo Lounge awards this year!”
- Treat yourself like a client earlier. The lock is the step a personal brand skips.
- Keep the system boring, let the work be loud.
- A portfolio that demonstrates its own claims needs no cover letter.
EIGHT SPREADS
BORN ON SUNDAY®
Coming soonOne master deck, a per-issue system, and a gated web version behind it.