The color story for @bestwestapparel draws from the heartland: harvest golds, cardinal reds, cream, and deep navy that looks like it’s been washed a hundred times.
The goal was apparel that looks right at a farmers market, a tailgate, or on a back road in October.
The launch line gives the identity room to breathe across three expressions, each translating cleanly to tees, hoodies, and hats. The bones stay, but the palette and type treatments will evolve with State-specific drops, Big Ten connections, and more.
The brief called for a full brand identity system, with core apparel to launch. Crew necks, pocket tees, hoodies, trucker hats, each built around the logo, the wordmark, and Best West’s rallying cry.
Now, Midwest pride is actually a bit of a contradiction. We’d rather send you home with leftovers than trumpet our own accomplishments. How do you communicate the quiet confidence of a people who (generally!) don’t have anything to prove?
Overall, we chose vintage nostalgia with 2026 punch. Script and all-caps typography mixed together. Warm, human, graphic enough to live on a hat or a chest pocket without explanation. The cardinal became one of the brand’s most versatile marks, a nod to the regional symbol that shows up in backyards from Minnesota to Indiana.
📸 @paigestatzphoto
Real Midwesterners recognize other Midwesterners like a sixth sense. Hiking out of the Grand Canyon, Jesse Mitchell crossed paths with a fellow Midwesterner, shared a few pleasantries, and walked away with a phrase that stuck: Midwest is the Best West. An idea was born.
The Midwest has no shortage of pride, but what it’s been missing is a brand that actually speaks to it. @bestwestapparel set out to fill that gap, with premium apparel built on Midwestern values of humility, community, and, of course, the unmistakable feeling that we’re a hidden treasure the coasts love to overlook.
✍🏼 @jengurrrl
A museum piece wasn’t the goal. So we merged the deco bones with a healthy dose of cowboy culture, neon accents, and imagery built around Fun Biz’s actual food concepts. The result is a brand that feels like it’s been part of the fairgrounds for decades. Playful and original, but rooted in something real.
For a space that serves 10 concepts under one roof, the brand needed to unify without flattening. Cavalcade does that. Every touchpoint speaks the same language, but the menu sets it apart. Come because of the brand. Stay for the turkey legs. Or pork belly bacon bites. Or Mexican street corn pizza.
Case Study link in bio.
Fortunately, we’d already done something like this in partnership with Fun Biz and @shelterdesigns at the Minnesota State Fair. We partnered with them to develop a site plan that would house existing food trailers within branded enclosures, creating a food hall environment built from stage truss and modular banner systems designed to evolve year over year.
With a modular environmental system built on truss and interchangeable banners, the brand is designed to grow as the space does. Year one is stage truss and printed banners. Down the road, it could be permanent structures, shipping containers, or something nobody’s thought of yet. The identity will hold either way.
Case Study link in bio.
The Texas State Fair is the biggest in the country, but you probably knew that already. 2.5 million visitors pass through the turnstiles every year, and Nate Janousek has made it his business to feed them, along with other fairgoers and expo attendees across the country.
Straightforward enough. But when fair leadership decided to tear down aging buildings along the Midway, they asked Nate for something pretty ambitious: to build a contemporary food hall with 8-10 windows serving up Texas-style treats. One cohesive experience, with a mandate to pay homage to the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition.
The 1936 Centennial Exposition had as much bombast as you imagine it would. Spotlights swept across the Midway. Banners and flags lined every corridor. Cowboys and cowgirls posed alongside art deco architecture. We plunged into the archives for inspiration, and they didn’t disappoint. Classic poster art. Deco letterforms. Bold geometry and saturated color.
Case study link in bio.
Trying to get something to “look Minnesotan” can quickly collapse into old cliches, like the design equivalent of telling someone you’re from Minnesota, only for them to reward you with their best impression of Marge Gunderson from Fargo.
But the Minnesota vibe feels earned. Sauna Water is confident, but understated. Here for you, but relying on substance over flash. And happy to be in 68 degrees, but right at home in the extremes of hot and cold. Just like the people who hail from the state we’re proud to call home.
“We knew we needed a seasoned design team with experience creating elevated consumer brands. The team at Malley collaborated closely with us and exceeded our expectations, delivering a brand and packaging system that supported our market positioning, design standards, and aspirations.” — Jeff Vondenkamp, Founder of Sauna Water
Case Study link in bio.
📸 Product shots: @jonkreye
“The way we’re wired is to be outside,” Jeff says. So no matter how many hours you spent burnt out behind your screen of choice, nature will always feel alluring.
With Sauna Water’s all-natural, often-foraged ingredients, nature felt like an art direction that was both obvious and smart. But instead of pine trees and smoke billowing out of saunas, we chose something subtler. Is it a body of water? Maybe. Light coming through a heap of steam? Buy a can or 12 and tell us what you think. Like sauna itself, it’s less something you understand and more an atmosphere you experience.
The colors double down on the vibes. We kept them grounded in colors you’d actually see in nature while turning the volume down on saturation. The can gets your attention, alright, but it doesn’t have to shout at you to do it.
The logotype is Scandinavian-influenced, with geometric serifs that are beautiful, but in a sound and useful way. Accompanying fonts introduce subtle curves that strike a balance between premium and organic, while giving it a more welcoming touch to pair with the stoic logotype.
Case Study link in bio.
If you’re a consumer scanning the aisles, you spend about 1.5 seconds on any given beverage.
And if you’re the brains behind a beverage that’s N/A, wellness, or both, you probably already felt the crowd around you. Alcohol consumption is down, alternatives are up, and the functional beverage industry is expecting to nearly double between 2022 and 2030.
With so many guests at the party, how do you get eyes to linger on you? That’s the question which came to us from Jeff Vondenkamp, the entrepreneur behind @drinksaunawater , a casual wellness beverage crafted for the salt, stress relief, and social connection that comes at 175 degrees. A successful partnership with @cedarandstonesauna , followed by a Star Tribune feature, led to 6 months of demand that was all ebb and no flow.
Jeff saw an opportunity to seize the moment. He partnered with us to deliver a packaging design that won attention in the aisles and gave them an image that could scale nationally while remaining true to its anti-hustle, pro-people roots.
Case Study link in bio
📸 @jonkreye
Open Door is comfortable in its own skin, and comfortable trading flash for authenticity. The color palette is built on calming shades of gray, which conveys an understated confidence and wisdom.
Still, soft pops of color draw inspiration from the outdoors and Open Door’s cultivator mindset, which moves at the pace of nature.
Don’t get us wrong: creeds are cool, music is nice, and words matter. But for anyone considering a church, it’s people that cause you to stick around long after you’ve walked through the door. And if you ask us, that’s what makes Open Door special.
Case Study link in bio.
It’s the arch motif that steals our hearts. When paired with a simple brand kit, the arch allows Open Door’s people to take center stage and almost feels like a sneak peek into their communal life.
This tagline formed the crux of the visual direction as well. And while the passageway logo is simple enough, its asymmetry feels like it’s calling you forward. The Favorit type selection is similarly unpretentious, but never risks being boring. It makes the brand feel modern, with geometric shapes (looking at you, y) that feel cohesive with the logo.
Case Study link in bio.
If we live in an age of dividing lines, Church of the Open Door defies it at every turn. Denominations? You’ll find every kind of Christian there. Political polarization? The entire political spectrum finds a way to feel at home. Intergenerational relationships dying in the U.S.? Open Door thrives on them. A unified pursuit binds their community together: “Engaging in the struggle of becoming fully alive in God.”
But when Dave Johnson concluded his 38-year run as the church’s visionary leader and Senior Pastor, Open Door faced fundamental questions. Who are we going to be? What will always be true about us? And how do we need to reimagine ourselves going forward?
Shortly after installing Dave Brickey as the new Senior Pastor, Open Door sought our partnership to help answer these questions while putting visual and verbal language to their core vision as a spiritual community.
Our Brand Platform process revealed four core attributes to Open Door’s brand:
Compassionate, Protective, Knowledgeable, Communal
Taken together, these are the ingredients that make up Open Door’s secret sauce. All our work needed to conspire together to show that Open Door really is that kind of community.
Enter, Beloved. Early in our work, that tagline emerged and immediately clicked into place. It’s simple, relationally-driven, and expands on what their name can mean. An invitation to move not just into a physical space, but a community engaged in the struggle of life and faith.
