Open Bar Supernova's wordmark: 100 hand-painted letters, no single author

Mindsparkle: Behind the scenes ONBOX DATE August 17, 2026 EDITOR Mindsparkle Mag Bar Supernova's wordmark: 100 hand-painted letters, no single author Bar Supernova didn't want a brand. It wanted an art piece. The new cocktail destination in Vancouver is built around craft, curiosity, and community — founded by Michelin-recognized bartenders Max Curzon-Price and Andrew Kong, the bar transforms overlooked ingredients into inventive cocktails, redefining sustainability through creativity.ONBOX partnered with Bar Supernova to create a brand identity that captures the curiosity, passion for craft, and community focus the bar will be known for.

The Supernova wordmark was created from letters painted by over 100 guests at a pop-up event.The ONBOX team surprised guests table-side at the pop-up, delivering ink and trimmed parchment squares alongside their cocktails. Painting "your letter" became part of the experience that night. The result is a modular wordmark of over 100 unique letters, hand-painted by guests who are now permanently written into the Supernova brand."The brief was to make it more art than branding," said Max Curzon-Price, Co-Owner of Bar Supernova. "We wanted the identity for Supernova to feel just as lively and human as the experience of the bar itself.

Something that brings people together where they can contribute to a collective energy. And something you really wouldn't expect from a bar."Rather than ask every guest to paint the same thing, the ONBOX team gave each person their own prompt: "paint the letter after R," "paint the letter after A," "paint us a Supernova." No one could see what the person beside them was painting, so no one could compare, copy, or second-guess against another version."When we kicked off, Max and Andrew described all these experimental, evocative things they wanted Supernova to feel like.

We kept coming back to how we could build that same spirit of experimentation into the brand. The idea that the process itself could carry meaning and become part of the story became the seed for something bigger: a wordmark with no single author." — Chris Rodgers, Creative Strategist, ONBOXThe pop-up was just the start. Curating the letters wasn't about finding the most polished ones, it was about staying true to the original handwriting, rough brush strokes, inkblots, and all.

From there, ONBOX carried those same qualities, irregular shapes, texture, organic movement, into the rest of the identity: typography, colour, real cut-paper forms, and tactile, handcrafted materials. That system extended across menus, coasters, signage, and a new website, with generous white space and considered typography keeping the raw energy from tipping into chaos."It's not every day you get the chance to create a brand that values intuition as much as intention.

Max and Andrew trusted us to bring that human touch into the brand, drawing inspiration from artists like Matisse and Miró, where space, colour, and composition communicate feeling, not just information. That approach shaped the identity end to end into something considered, tactile, and unmistakably human." — Margaux Worrall, Designer, ONBOX"This is exactly the direction Andrew and I wanted for Supernova. We just didn't know what it looked like yet. ONBOX helped us hone that ethos and vision through the brand work. For twenty-four years we've been dreaming about bringing our own bar into existence.

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The article presents a unique branding strategy that actively involves the community in the creative process, which is significant for brand differentiation and engagement, making it highly relevant to brand strategy professionals.