Squarespace · 2018 · client side

Squarespace at ten.

Squarespace turned ten in 2018. I was Brand Lead, working with David Lee, and commissioned DIA to build the identity. Then I ran it day to day for several years.

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Identity system by DIA · typeface by François Rappo

01 / Credits

Who did what.

Client side: Nessim Higson — Brand Lead
with David Lee, Chief Creative Officer
Identity system: DIA — Mitch Paone
with Meg Donohoe, Deanna Sperrazza, Daniel Wenzel, Naoko Hara
Typeface: Clarkson, by François Rappo
Optimo Foundry
Year: 2018
rollout and campaign work following

02 / Brief

Not a logo refresh. A system that could move.

A strict typographic foundation with a set of motion behaviours on top, rather than a library of assets. Squarespace publishes constantly, so whatever we commissioned had to be run by the in-house team without the studio in the room.

Brand film · sound onThe launch film, 2018. Music by Joe Johnson. The sections below break down what is in these fifty seconds.

03 / What we got

Six rules rather than six assets.

Years later the team was still making new work from them without needing to ask anyone.

The behaviours · motionA square rotates, skews, splits and reassembles.

The foundation · motionClarkson, a custom cut by François Rappo. Owning the letterform lets the behaviours stay loose.

Squarespace signage — **The mark, at rest**The mark on a wall in daylight with nothing moving.

At volume · motionHundreds of pieces by different people that still read as one company. This is the frame that sold it internally.

04 / The tool

Generative brand tooling, in 2018.

The behaviours lived in an internal app with a few parameters: cube size, rows, angle. Nobody called it generative design in 2018, but that is what it was.

The Brand Generative App · motionA designer set the inputs; the system produced the artwork.

05 / After launch

What happened after launch.

The real test of a system is a team that didn't design it using it every day.

Times Square · motionThe least forgiving scale. Strict type survives it, decoration does not.

Editorial · motionThe daily volume, where a system either scales or gets quietly dropped.

Make It campaign posters — **Campaign**Type moving behind the subject, never on top of it.

Subway out of home — **Out of home**Frozen at its most disordered moment and still legible from an escalator.

06 / Seven years on

Still in use.

Captured from squarespace.com on 31 July 2026. A lot has changed. The typographic foundation has not.

squarespace.com · captured 31 July 2026

07 / What it taught me

A system is only as good as it is in other people's hands.

The deck is the easy half. What matters is whether a designer on a deadline can make something on-brand without asking. That is why I reduce everything I build to rules a team can run without me.

Selected Work →

Four projects, one showreel.