Anatomy of an Immortal Identity
The Immortal Words brand identity system has arrived. May it live forever.
By: William Hart, Mehran Azma, Emily Taormina, FINE
It’s made from pure straight-faced absurdity and tongue-in-cheek self-important grandiose comic poignance. Also, Figma.
As a collab with longtime co-conspirator Josh Kelly (+ elusive Chief Operative Phineas Bling), you’d hope this would’ve kicked off with an airtight strategic brief to answer simple questions like “what would you say you DO here?” But no! Much of it was conveyed as telepathic manifesto, fever dream, inside joke, sacred text, and double dare (see Appendix). Then it got weird.
So it arrives aiming to both blend in and buck the system. Kicking the door in, adjusting its cuffs, and shouting “give me amaranth or give me death!”
Twisted Twists Welcome
As always, a range of directions was considered. The first, presented without a hint of its intended jest, deployed Comic Sans, Papyrus, a pilcrow, lime green, and googly-eyed imagery. It seems important to note: this direction was nearly selected. We might have been introducing it today had we not all been wooed by the twisted elegance of the chosen direction you see before you, titled “Elegance With a Twist”.
Subversive Flower Power
This twisted color palette asks: "serious question: you serious?"
Orange + amaranth sit side by side like estranged twins forced into a family portrait. Blue and cream broker a fragile peace.
The color amaranth earns the lead through sheer historical audacity. Greeks called it the "flower of immortality" for its refusal to fade. Spanish conquistadors, threatened by its power, banned it, burned its fields, executed those found to possess it. Subversive flower facts made us double down on that bad boy.
Various blues were considered (various blues are always considered). One wore an unbuttoned collar under a desaturated blazer. Another brought livelier energy, hue and lightness tweaked, saturation cranked. The chosen blue swerves hard into oncoming traffic: ambiguously blue-black, stepping back far enough to let amaranth floor it the moment the light turns yellow.
Type IS the Face
For a brand that leads with words, the typeface is the face. Caudex was selected for its rare ability to feel both ancient and digital, as though unearthed from stone ruins, then optimized for retina display. It holds sharp at large sizes even across long-form headlines, ideal for expert bloviation that begins "In the Immortal Words of…" and indeed seems to go on forever.
Alegreya Sans handles even longer form: light touch, readable at length, built for making an article feel like a conversation rather than a sermon. Together, they create a rhythm of gravitas up front, humanity beneath.
Atomic Iconic
Sharp-eyed observers will find that the distinctively atomic, perpetually iconic Immortal Words symbol is built from the opposing-tilted O's drawn from the words of the name. The orbiting icon is giving mid-century. What century? All of them! Past! Present! Future! Real! Imagined! It’s quantum entangled. But don’t overlook its simple human quality formed by the two O's that combine to create a sound of wonder echoing in eternity: ooh!
Punk Rock Voltaire
The fluid forms of the icon and the bright palette bleed into imagery throughout. Ancient wisdom of Oscar Wilde or Voltaire becomes strikingly current when their weathered portraits turn punk pink. Modern industry thought leadership acquires a strange, timeless quality when wrapped in immortal colors and shapes. The historical and the contemporary stop distinguishing themselves from each other, which is, come to think of it, exactly the point. It’s not decoration; it’s transformation. Taking ideas and forcing them to live louder, stranger, more independently.
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Appendix: The Un-Brief
We can’t possibly post the entire brief here due to its length, fictitiousness, and mild offensiveness. Just a few highlights:
Immortal Words glows with the light of 1,000 industries, a holy union of entertainment/arts, fashion, business/consulting, and (of course) Internet begins to approach it. Most people are employed here and they don’t yet know it; everyone’s a prospective customer and they don’t yet believe it. Now imagine harried businesspeople of middling age who’ve long since forsaken right-brain dreams in favor of building their bank account and paunches. They’ll bring their Immortal Words schwag home from a transformative introductory meeting with our dazzling ambassadors, and their otherwise surly and dismissive teenage offspring will immediately see their parents in a new light. They’ll steal everything adorned with the IW logo so that it will rapid-rise to global youth sensation. Immortal Words spans generations and sensibilities like no brand to come before; it doesn’t just connect them, it merges them forever, destroying all boundaries under the weight of a visceral promise of everlasting vibrance for humans, dismantling their arbitrary tribal groupings and uniting all lifeforms in shared multiversal frequency, in fierce opposition to artificial general intelligence.
Immortal Words is an experimental post-rock melodic dance metal roots band that disbanded when it got old and now it is a brand consulting, content, and publishing concern. It still has a rhythm you can dance to and meaningful lyrics you may wish to inscribe or tattoo on your office supplies or body parts. And hoodies!
It’s overblown. It’s not a name, it’s a revolution of irreverence. It says, here’s to the things that leave you slack-jawed and weak-kneed, and let’s all sing karaoke to my hyphen song.
It says “YES” when other things say, “I dunno I guess maybe, whatever could be maybe…”
If it was an animal, it wouldn’t be just one animal it would be ALL the animals lumped together to create one big meganimal called a Immortasaurus Rex.
The Immortal Words brand platform has pillars upon which adjectives cling like golden, low-hanging fruits to form our shared yet silent battle cry. Each is carefully curated and entirely secret and you must guess them all yourself now.
Our deliverables come in multimedia, Word files, Powerpoint-Keynotey things, ads, substackery, crackpot letters, out-of-office messages, top 10 lists, sometimes in the body of an email or text messages or interpretive dances or primal screams. They are thinkings and writings and insightfulness and perspective and plans that are tectonic in their impact and efficacy for companies brave enough to adopt some measure of the immortal spirit. Definitely hoodies for sure.
Above all, Immortal Words is a brand. It is so obviously a brand. It done got branded. It can sell anything that benefits from having a brand branded upon it. It can be a seal of approval or a certificate of authenticity. It says “whatever thing this is that we just stamped this dang thing on, where it wasn’t immortal before it sure is immortal now!” For instance, hoodies.
Above all, it is about the serious work of finding humor, humanity, and absurdity in our commercial world (and extracting commercial value from our absurd, human world). Obviously, nothing lasts forever, but words (to the extent they capture ideas and emotions and memories) connect with people and outlast them. Thusly, Immortal Words are indelible, especially when preceded by thusly.
Anyway, give it a shot.
We borrow thoughts, quote passions, mimic lives. It’s true: all identity is grounded in some familiar vernacular of design, culture, and language. It’s always a question of how much is rehashed before you veer off into #Original.
The Immortal Words brand identity doesn’t reject that. It embraces it. Steals it. Remixes it. Brands it. Sees the joke and commits to it. Backs it with content.
And then, with a straight face yet a raised eyebrow, hands it back to you and says: Use any of this but make it yours.
The trick to immortality is to truly be other people in a truly new way.