The Project Bench team spent the last several weeks capturing photos and videos of Canada's largest wine region -- the Niagara Benchlands (link is to the official tourism website). And today I'm excited to share that we've launched our own new placemaking website called On the Bench.

The purpose of the site is to help celebrate the region. There's also some very preliminary information about Project Bench. In our humble opinion, we don't feel that the Benchlands region receives the attention that it clearly deserves. More people are familiar with Niagara-on-the-Lake and Niagara Falls, especially globally.

The Bench is a distinct area, with its own unique character and with more -- and arguably better -- wineries. This v1 website is the start of us working to demonstrate this. So if you're a local business or community member that would like to collaborate with us on this overall initiative, we'd love to hear from you.

To join the Bench community and be first to learn more about Project Bench, email subscribe at the bottom of the page, and follow us on Instagram and X.

We have been working with Vanderbrand for many years. They are the creative agency behind both Junction House and One Delisle. We love the work that they do. It's beautiful, and they have always managed to get our vision behind each project.

In the case of Junction House, we wanted something clean and simple that at the same time responded to the creative edginess of the Junction neighborhood.

And in the case of One Delisle, we wanted something elevated but that wasn't traditional or typical. One Delisle is all about pioneering architecture and the brand needed to reflect that (we ended up creating our own typeface that will be carried through into the completed building).

If you're interested in learning more, Vanderbrand has just updated their website to include a full "case study" on One Delisle. You can check that out over here. Below are a few of my favorite images.

This is an interesting article by Ben Schott of Bloomberg talking about how "debranding is the new branding." In it he argues that for reasons of fashion, tech, and other factors, many or perhaps most brands seem to be shedding detail and depth in their brands/logos and moving toward simplicity and flatness. He calls this debranding (which doesn't quite feel like the right word to me.)

Countless examples are provided ranging from Burger King and KFC to Saint Laurent Paris and Diane Von Furstenberg. In all cases, their logos and lockups went from elaborate to minimal. And in some cases, names were deliberately shortened. Kentucky Friend Chicken, as you all know, became KFC, largely because "fried" was becoming an undesirable reference.

The same is also true for newer brands that have no history of elaborate logos. As I was reading through the article, I started thinking about some of the project brands that we have created over the years. Here is our logo for Junction House (crafted by Vanderbrand):

Some of this is certainly about fashion. At this point, overly detailed logos feel a bit cartoonish and antiquated. Clean and minimal is pretty much what you want today. Slate's logo went through a similar transformation over the years and is now, as many of you know, a black box with white text.

Another part of this is that logos and brands now need to live in so many different locations from favicons and mobile apps to business cards and social media profile photos. Sometimes you just don't have enough real estate to show a lot of detail.

Simplicity can also signal strength. Starbucks is perhaps a good example of this. Initially their logo spelled out Starbucks Coffee. But now we all associate their green nautical-inspired sea lady with Starbucks Coffee and so those words are no longer necessary. This kind of brand equity, of course, takes time to build.

Fashion label Off-White is another interesting case study that I wrote about a few years ago, over here. What they have managed to do is take simple and mundane things like quotation marks and really own them as part of their brand. Put any word in quotation marks on a t-shirt and you'll have me thinking it's a $315 Off-White tee.

That's pretty powerful when you think of it.