MaRS Discovery District
A national innovation hub advancing research and entrepreneurship, brought to life through digital platforms and live experiences.
Client Relationship
For over a decade, the partnership with MaRS has been built on trust, fluency and consistency. When Sid Lee launched the new brand, MaRS turned to us to carry it forward. Since then, we have upheld the integrity of the brand, continued to build equity, and assist in its evolution with clarity and relevance.
As North America’s largest urban innovation hub, MaRS connects science, technology, health, social impact, and capital. Its role in shaping what comes next has always been clear long before the brand refresh. When that identity was launched, our role became pivotal: to uphold its integrity, reflect its ambition, and carry it forward with care.
With such a broad reach, brand touch points are constant and varied. As MaRS’s design partner, we ensure the identity holds strong across every format. Our deep understanding of branding has allowed us to interpret the guidelines not just as rules, but as tools—translating them into usable, meaningful expressions for a diverse and evolving community.
From brand theory to brand experience, we have been adapting the MaRS brand to stay engaging and relevant.
Our work with MaRS spans every expression of the brand, from digital and editorial to print and environmental design. Each medium brings different demands. We adapt the brand with care: ensuring motion feels fluent in digital spaces, wayfinding offers clarity in physical ones, and layouts scale with impact across formats. This breadth requires both precision and flexibility. As MaRS continues to push innovation forward, we meet that momentum with design solutions that invite experimentation while protecting brand integrity. The creative tension between consistency and evolution remains central to the work.
Information Design
Clarity is essential when communicating complexity—and this is where MaRS demands precision. The goal is to shape visuals that make layered content accessible, engaging, and meaningful to all audiences.
At the heart of this partnership is a deep respect for the work MaRS leads. The focus on innovation and the pursuit of progress aligns closely with how design is approached here: with curiosity, precision, and a constant appetite for better. There is genuine interest in the content MaRS shares. Reports are read, details are understood, and subject matter is explored to make the work more than just visual, but grounded in function.
Over the years, this has evolved into a relationship defined by trust and integration. Not just a vendor, but a partner embedded in the process. The scale of output across hundreds of pieces and countless touch points is a reflection of fluency. A brand understood, upheld, and applied with care. Deliverables move quickly, collaboration flows easily. There's room to experiment, iterate, and try again. That ease is intentional.
As the MaRS brand continues to grow, so does the opportunity to contribute. To reinforce its presence as a national and global leader in innovation—one report, banner, motion sequence, or event space at a time. It's a partnership shaped by ambition, shared through design, and built to last.