John at Junction Climbing, who I’ve previously worked with through Anderson Craft Ales (they share a building), reached out because he was planning a new bouldering gym. The first of its kind in London, Ontario. The amount of climbers at Junction who favoured bouldering was quickly outpacing their bouldering space–they knew the demand was there. This new gym would be part of the Junction family, their second location, and London’s second climbing gym so they landed on the name J2 Bouldering. 

We went through a brand strategy exercise, getting into their core values, story, positioning, personality, and more. There are comparable gyms for bouldering across the province in larger cities, and J2 wants to show that London can hold its own. Maybe even create a better climbing experience. The concept of individualism came up, where people have less time to get together with a team or a group. Although there is a strong community of support, bouldering can be a solo sport where you’re competing against your last session.

A lot of gyms rely on a polygonal style found on the climbing walls as their logo or part of their visual identity, but I was aiming to make J2 stand out and be completely unique in this space. I was working on the rough sketches of the initial concepts and exploring the forms of “J2” when I saw it. With a little bit of abstraction, the forms start to look like a person bouldering, reaching with their arm and stretching their leg up to the hold. Perfectly tying in with the individualism concept. This was the one!

After a few minor adjustments, J2 had their identity. The vibrant colour palette from Junction Climbing was adopted for J2, helping to create consistency and build brand recognition between the two brands. Typography was established and a unique pattern based on the geometric shapes used in the logo was developed to round out the visual identity.

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