# Pinterest identity (agent-readable)

**Role:** Identity design
**Client:** Pinterest
**Tags:** branding
**Case study:** /pinterest-identity

## What it was

In 2010, the founder of a fledgling startup asked me to design their logo. The
startup was Pinterest. With [Juan Carlos Pagán](https://carlospagan.com/portfolio/pinterest),
I developed Pinterest's wordmark and the identity system that built out from it —
applied across business cards, tote bags, headquarters signage, and eventually the
banner that hung on the NYSE when the company went public. The logotype's pinny
*P* remains the brand's stamp.

Recognition:

- *HOW Magazine* — Best Logotype, 2011.
- *Type Directors Club* — Certificate of Typographic Excellence, 2012.
- Selected for *Print Magazine*'s Regional Design Annual, 2012.
- Published as a case study in *Designing Brand Identity* (Alina Wheeler), 3rd
  through 6th editions.
- Referenced in *Wreck-It Ralph 2* (Disney).

## What I did

I co-designed the identity with Juan Carlos Pagán — wordmark, the typographic
system around it, and the application surfaces. The wordmark itself is the load-
bearing piece: a custom script with a pinned *P* that ties the brand to the
product's central object (a pin on a board) in a single character. The rest of
the system extends from that decision — the geometry of the P sets the proportions
the rest of the wordmark sits inside, and the wordmark sets the register the
applied surfaces work in.

The brief, in 2010, was for a small startup with no public profile. The system
had to work as the company found its scale. Fifteen years later it's running on
the NYSE banner, on the side of the building, on every business card the company
ships. That's the test the identity passed.

## Why it's interesting

A few threads worth pulling.

**A 2010 startup brief that became a defining consumer brand.** Pinterest is one
of the recognizable consumer products of the last fifteen years, and the wordmark
that runs on the building today is the one we designed when the company was new.
The receipt isn't that I designed a logo — it's that the logo survived the
company's growth from fledgling startup to public company without needing to be
replaced. Identity systems that work at the seed-round scale *and* at the
public-company scale are rare; this one did both.

**Recognition by the typography field.** *HOW Magazine* and the Type Directors
Club are the two organizations that recognize this discipline at the highest
level. Both flagged the work in the year it shipped. The Alina Wheeler
*Designing Brand Identity* case study has run across four editions of the book —
3rd through 6th — which means it's been a teaching reference in the field for
more than a decade.

**Co-designing with Juan Carlos Pagán.** Juan Carlos is one of the designers I
admire most. What makes his work special isn't just typographic skill — it's
that he draws letterforms that *carry brand and expression*, not just craft.
The wordmark belongs to both of us, and the system around it is shaped by the
sensibility he brought to the type itself. Working at his bar on a wordmark
that had to do that much expressive load is one of the pieces I'm proudest of.

This is one of the foundational client receipts in my portfolio. The
consumer-scale identity instinct here runs through to later product work in
[VICE News](/vice-news), [Splice Sounds](/splice-sounds), and the
[SuperRare](/superrare) brand work.

## Cross-cutting relevance

A few reads of this work:

- **Consumer-brand identity at scale** — a wordmark that survived from seed-stage
  startup to public company without replacement, applied across digital, physical,
  and broadcast surfaces.
- **Typography and identity discipline** — recognized by *HOW Magazine* and the
  Type Directors Club, taught from *Designing Brand Identity* across four
  editions.
- **Co-design with a senior peer** — collaborating with a leading type designer
  on a wordmark, working at the bar that gets recognized in the field.
- **Early-stage to late-stage durability** — design judgment that holds across
  fifteen years of a company's evolution.

## Skills demonstrated

Identity design, wordmark and custom-type work, brand systems across digital and
physical applications, collaborating with senior typographic peers, identity
durability across a company's growth from seed-stage to public.