J. Coltrane
J. Coltrane is a wedding and couples photographer based between Los Angeles and Sydney. With more than eight years shooting weddings across the US, Australia and Europe, and work published by Vogue and Anti-Bride, Jack had the experience and the eye. The wedding photography industry has a look and sound – soft, safe, sentimental – and Jack's work sits nowhere near it. Our brief was to build something that told the truth about what he does.
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The wordmark is bespoke serif lettering combining classic Roman proportions with Art Deco sensibilities – well balanced without being perfect, soft and curved despite its rectangular form. Alongside it sits a monogram: an ambigram reading simultaneously as an ampersand and as the letters J and C, a quiet nod to the couples at the centre of the work. A third mark – the illustrated wordmark – is hand-drawn and loose, a signature rather than a logo, used sparingly and in surprising moments. The palette is near-total in its discipline: off-white and black as the foundation, with Something Blue – the brand's single concession to colour – appearing rarely and with full intention.
The identity is built around three values: Trust, Editorial, and Lust. Trust is established through precision and restraint. Nothing excessive, nothing decorative for its own sake. Editorial governs the relationship between type and image, the logic of the layout, the way a well-designed page holds its contents. Lust is the loosening: the human touch, the grain of film, the gesture that keeps the brand from disappearing into its own good taste.
The tagline, tender observations, sets the standard for the copy throughout. Tender is physical and emotional simultaneously. Observations implies presence without intrusion. The writing holds to the same discipline as the design: precise, unhurried, and entirely free from the warmth the wedding industry performs but rarely means.
We began with the references Jack already carried – the 90s editorial, Bruce Weber, the world-building of Ralph Lauren. These weren't references that advertised a service; they extended an invitation into a world. That became the brief.
The wordmark grew from this research. Drawing inspiration from Herb Lubalin's Eros magazine masthead and the typeface Orpheus, it is the cornerstone of our editorial positioning, designed to function as an authoritative masthead for the brand. White space is used in abundance, giving every element room to be seen.
In the layouts that inspired us, type and image are never in competition, they are in conversation. In J. Coltrane’s identity the photography is always the subject. The design is always the context.
To expand the brand beyond the editorial, we looked to Jack's other references – the gritty glamour of Los Angeles and the French New Wave.
Ed Ruscha became our lens into LA: where the Americana of Ralph Lauren and Bruce Weber meets something rawer, a master of combining text and image in a way that is both vernacular and considered. His influence runs through the brand's typographic logic and our choice of Futura PT Bold. The French New Wave brought romance without sentimentality – Godard and Truffaut gave us permission to embrace the side of love the wedding industry tends to look away from: desire, intimacy, the quietly bawdy. It's what stops the brand being pretty and makes it human.
This research lives in the elements that reintroduce the human hand: the illustrated wordmark, a signature flourish rather than a logo; the choice to print and rescan, to let images accumulate the texture of the physical world; the grain and warmth of film. The blue – Something Blue – unexpected and unapologetic. These are the qualities that ensure the brand never fully disappears into its own refinement.
Our services for J. Coltrane were comprehensive. We gave the brand it’s positioning and visual structure, then applied this across the website and stationery. Beyond this, we defined the tone of voice guidelines and collaborated with journalist Zoe Whitfield for the brand copy.
CREATIVE DIRECTION
Doing Me Doing You
PHOTOGRAPHY
J. Coltrane
COPY WRITING
Zoe Whitfield
WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT
Doing Me Doing You
Doing Me Doing You Intern
Jess Novakova
TYPEFACES
Custom Logo, Kleisch LL, Futura Bold
2025-2026
