Brand identity · Film production
BlackWater Pictures
A cinematic, monochrome brand identity for the film production company founded by Antoine Dixon-Bellot and Kevin Harvey. Built on an abstract triangle and still water, with a framing system that runs from the logo all the way to the billboard.
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Founders, one shared vision
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Triangle, three meanings
B/W
A deliberately monochrome system
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Pages in the brand manual
The brief
A new studio that needed to look like it meant it
Antoine Dixon-Bellot and Kevin Harvey started BlackWater Pictures to make films with a particular kind of weight to them. They came to us before the first festival run, which is the right time to get a brand sorted: early enough that every poster, title card and crew shirt could pull in the same direction from day one.
A production company brand has an unusual job. It cannot shout, because the films are the stars. It has to sit on a poster next to wildly different artwork, film after film, and still feel like the same studio every time.
So we built something quiet and structural. A single shape, a strict monochrome palette, and a framing system that does the recognising so the logo does not have to.
The mark
A triangle, a body of water, and a single sail
The logo carries three ideas at once, which is exactly what you want from a mark a studio will live with for years.
Stability and ascent
A triangle is the most stable shape there is, and it points up. For a young production company that wants to grow and last, it was the right base symbol before we drew a single line.
Past, present, future
The three sides stand in for the timeline of a film and of the studio itself. Where it came from, what it is making now, and where it is heading next.
Still water
Inside the triangle sits a body of calm water with a small reflected sail. It is the black water in the name, made literal, and it gives the mark its quiet, cinematic mood.
Type and tone
Manrope, set with room to breathe
What we shipped
From title card to clapperboard
Logo and framing system
The triangle mark plus a triangular framing device that crops photography into sharp, screen-like shapes. It is the thing that makes a BlackWater poster recognisable from across a room, even before you read the name.
A monochrome rulebook
Pure black, pure white, and the grayscale in between. Manrope across the whole system. Measurement, clear space, minimum sizes, prohibited uses and background rules, all documented so the brand survives contact with real production deadlines.
Production-ready collateral
Letterhead, envelopes, business cards and ID, email signatures, shirts and polos, notebooks and pens, plus the on-set pieces that matter to a film crew: clapperboards, megaphones and director chairs.
Rolled out across
Everywhere the studio shows up
How we approached it
Four calls that shaped the whole system
The brand serves the film, never the other way round
A production company logo that fights the poster is a bad logo. We kept BlackWater monochrome and restrained on purpose, so the studio brand frames the creative and then gets out of the way.
Black and white is a decision, not a limitation
Stripping colour out forces everything else to work harder: composition, contrast, type, the cut of the triangle. The result reads as film, not corporate, and it never clashes with a single piece of cinematography.
One shape, used everywhere
The triangle is the logo, the photo frame, the layout grid and the motif on the director chair. Repeating one strong idea across every surface is what turns a logo into a brand.
A system two founders can run
Antoine and Kevin needed something they could hand to a printer, a poster designer or a new crew member without losing the look. The manual is built for exactly that, with hard rules and clear examples.
Launching something, and want it to look the part?
We build identities that hold up under real-world use, from the logo down to the smallest piece of kit. If you are starting a company, this is the right moment to talk.