Year Completed
2026
Client
Grind House
Category
Branding, Marketing, Design
Duration
3 Months
Role
Creative Director
Designer
Brand Strategy
Credits
Edwin Cabrera
Film Director
Joe Garfi
Animation / Saintz Kitchen
Max Reid
Film Editor / Saintz Kitchen
Overview
Grind House is a docustyle media company telling the stories of music & culture. What began as a channel rooted in Lynn's hip-hop community needed a brand system capable of growing beyond its origins without losing the credibility that made it worth watching in the first place. The solution is a visual architecture built around a six-vertical system, a single industrial display typeface, four interchangeable thumbnail templates, and a full UI component library — all governed by one unifying brand.
Challenge
Grind House built its early reputation on music — specifically Lynn's surprisingly rich hip-hop scene. That origin story was an asset, but it was also a ceiling. The audience association was narrow: GH is a music channel. Expanding into food, culture, film etc.
The core tension: specificity is what made GH trustworthy, but specificity was also what was keeping it small.
Three things had to be solved:
1. Reframe the mission without abandoning the roots. GH couldn't pretend the music content didn't exist. The repositioning had to feel like a natural evolution — not a rebrand. The answer was shifting the brand story from "we cover only music" to "we cover culture and all that it brings." Music was just the entry point.
2. Give each vertical equal visual weight. The six-vertical system was the solution — every category gets its own icon and identical visual treatment. No vertical is subordinate in the design system.
3. Earn credibility in new categories. Music audiences don't automatically trust a channel's food coverage just because they liked the rap docs. GH needed to approach each new vertical with the same documentary seriousness that built its reputation — real subjects, real stories.
Solution
The answer wasn't a single visual identity — it was an architecture. A set of rules flexible enough to accommodate six distinct content categories while remaining coherent enough that every piece of content is unmistakably Grind House. The system had to work at thumbnail size in a crowded YouTube feed, at full screen on a documentary watch page, and everywhere in between.
- Iconography for Various Media Verticals as Navigation
- Component Library
- Media Thumbnail System
Year Completed
2026
Client
Grind House
Category
Branding, Marketing, Design
Duration
3 Months
Role
Creative Director
Designer
Brand Strategy
Credits
Edwin Cabrera
Film Director
Joe Garfi
Animation / Saintz Kitchen
Max Reid
Film Editor / Saintz Kitchen
Overview
Grind House is a docustyle media company telling the stories of music & culture. What began as a channel rooted in Lynn's hip-hop community needed a brand system capable of growing beyond its origins without losing the credibility that made it worth watching in the first place. The solution is a visual architecture built around a six-vertical system, a single industrial display typeface, four interchangeable thumbnail templates, and a full UI component library — all governed by one unifying brand.
Challenge
Grind House built its early reputation on music — specifically Lynn's surprisingly rich hip-hop scene. That origin story was an asset, but it was also a ceiling. The audience association was narrow: GH is a music channel. Expanding into food, culture, film etc.
The core tension: specificity is what made GH trustworthy, but specificity was also what was keeping it small.
Three things had to be solved:
1. Reframe the mission without abandoning the roots. GH couldn't pretend the music content didn't exist. The repositioning had to feel like a natural evolution — not a rebrand. The answer was shifting the brand story from "we cover only music" to "we cover culture and all that it brings." Music was just the entry point.
2. Give each vertical equal visual weight. The six-vertical system was the solution — every category gets its own icon and identical visual treatment. No vertical is subordinate in the design system.
3. Earn credibility in new categories. Music audiences don't automatically trust a channel's food coverage just because they liked the rap docs. GH needed to approach each new vertical with the same documentary seriousness that built its reputation — real subjects, real stories.
Solution
The answer wasn't a single visual identity — it was an architecture. A set of rules flexible enough to accommodate six distinct content categories while remaining coherent enough that every piece of content is unmistakably Grind House. The system had to work at thumbnail size in a crowded YouTube feed, at full screen on a documentary watch page, and everywhere in between.
- Iconography for Various Media Verticals as Navigation
- Component Library
- Media Thumbnail System
Year Completed
2026
Client
Grind House
Category
Branding, Marketing, Design
Duration
3 Months
Role
Creative Director
Designer
Brand Strategy
Credits
Edwin Cabrera
Film Director
Joe Garfi
Animation / Saintz Kitchen
Max Reid
Film Editor / Saintz Kitchen
Overview
Grind House is a docustyle media company telling the stories of music & culture. What began as a channel rooted in Lynn's hip-hop community needed a brand system capable of growing beyond its origins without losing the credibility that made it worth watching in the first place. The solution is a visual architecture built around a six-vertical system, a single industrial display typeface, four interchangeable thumbnail templates, and a full UI component library — all governed by one unifying brand.
Challenge
Grind House built its early reputation on music — specifically Lynn's surprisingly rich hip-hop scene. That origin story was an asset, but it was also a ceiling. The audience association was narrow: GH is a music channel. Expanding into food, culture, film etc.
The core tension: specificity is what made GH trustworthy, but specificity was also what was keeping it small.
Three things had to be solved:
1. Reframe the mission without abandoning the roots. GH couldn't pretend the music content didn't exist. The repositioning had to feel like a natural evolution — not a rebrand. The answer was shifting the brand story from "we cover only music" to "we cover culture and all that it brings." Music was just the entry point.
2. Give each vertical equal visual weight. The six-vertical system was the solution — every category gets its own icon and identical visual treatment. No vertical is subordinate in the design system.
3. Earn credibility in new categories. Music audiences don't automatically trust a channel's food coverage just because they liked the rap docs. GH needed to approach each new vertical with the same documentary seriousness that built its reputation — real subjects, real stories.
Solution
The answer wasn't a single visual identity — it was an architecture. A set of rules flexible enough to accommodate six distinct content categories while remaining coherent enough that every piece of content is unmistakably Grind House. The system had to work at thumbnail size in a crowded YouTube feed, at full screen on a documentary watch page, and everywhere in between.
- Iconography for Various Media Verticals as Navigation
- Component Library
- Media Thumbnail System
