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Thing King brand identity and website

A complete mini identity for a small studio: crown, wordmark, colour and type tokens, and a website built directly from them.

Client
Thing King (own studio)
Type
Brand things · Web things
Services
BrandingWebsites
Role
Brand, UX/UI, front-end build
Year
2026
Thing King brand board showing the crown logo, the yellow, cream and black colour palette, Archivo type samples, marker-pen graphics and badges.

The thing

Thing King needed to look like a considered, senior creative studio from day one. The identity had to work at favicon size and on a poster, stay playful without turning childish, and give the website a real design system to build from rather than a mood board.

Thing King primary stacked logo on cream: yellow crown with black marks above the black THING KING wordmark and the descriptor Your tiny creative kingdom.
Primary logo, accent version on Royal Cream.
Thing King primary stacked logo reversed on black: yellow crown with cream marks above the cream THING KING wordmark.
Accent reverse, for black surfaces.

The problem

A studio selling senior design has to prove it in its own branding. The risk was a king theme that tipped into gimmick, or a system so loose that the website would drift from the brand within a month.

Thing King crown sticker: a yellow hand-drawn crown with a black outline and a cream cut-line.
The crown as a sticker: yellow fill, black stroke, cream cut-line.

The thinking

One device, one gesture.

One direction, developed properly. A hand-drawn three-point crown as the single brand device; a chunky uppercase wordmark with THINK hidden inside THING KING; a cream and black editorial palette with one signature yellow and two quiet supporting tints; and a small marker-pen graphic language of arrows, underlines and badges. The rule that shaped everything was one gesture per layout.

Colour tokens

  • King Black #1A1A1A Type, buttons, black sections
  • Royal Cream #F8F5EC Background
  • Crown Yellow #FDDC3B Signature accent
  • Hype Lilac #D9C8FF Badge tint
  • Sage Thing #A9B9A1 Badge tint
  • Stone #E3E0D6 Neutral badge, dividers

Type system

  • Archivo Black · display headlines
  • Archivo 900 · headings and buttons
  • Archivo 500 · body copy
  • Permanent Marker · handwritten notes only

The make

Logo system in every variant, colour and type tokens, a six-icon service set, badges and graphics, favicons, share images, a 24-page brand guideline and a versioned asset package. Then this website, built straight from those tokens: cream background, black sections at most twice a page, yellow reserved for the crown, the primary button and the marker underline.

Thing King social share card on cream with the yellow crown and the headline Got a thing? Bring it to the King, underlined in yellow marker.
Share card, 1200 by 630, shown complete.
Square Thing King social image with the crown and wordmark on cream.
Square share image.
Thing King 404 graphic: a tilted yellow crown sticker above the words This thing doesn’t exist.
404 artwork.
Thing King Instagram post on black announcing The Brand Thing from R5,500 with a yellow Start a Brand Thing button.
Social system: package post, 1080 by 1350.
Thing King LinkedIn banner on cream: horizontal logo, the line Small projects. Senior design. with a yellow marker underline.
LinkedIn banner, 1584 by 396, from the same tokens.

The result

One brand, one set of tokens, and a website, a social kit and a guideline that all draw from them. Every layout gets exactly one playful gesture.

Related thing

Today, this kind of work is The Brand Thing on the Royal Menu, from R5,500. Read about branding at Thing King, or see the whole menu.

Need design like this regularly? Explore our Design Retainer

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