Crown Creative gives Barkhouse an identity worthy of a members’ club

The Brand Identity: Crown Creative’s identity for Barkhouse, a membership-based dog hotel and daycare on New York’s West 25th Street, opens with a wordmark that sets two typefaces against each other within the name. Conforto, a warm sans serif, carries the ‘BARK.’ Coconat, a contemporary serif, carries the ‘HOUSE.’ The split is not just a graphic flourish but a structural decision about who the brand is talking to at any given moment. “There’s something quite open and approachable in the shapes, which felt right for the dog side of the brand,” Ryan Crown, Founder of Crown Creative, tells us.

“Coconat brings that confidence and elevation without being cold or overly fashion-led.” The two typefaces have enough in common to read as one, and differ enough to register as two intentional parts. The dog and the owner are being addressed at the same time, by the same brand, in the same word. A third typographic voice sits beneath the Conforto and Coconat. Grazé, a hand-drawn accent typeface, appears in tightly controlled moments – a scribbled ‘+ dog dad’ appended to a business card title, ‘sit. stay. relax’ signing off a welcome letter, and a ‘good day for a spaw day’ running above a grooming illustration.

“The main typography is quite editorial and structured, so the ‘dog speak’ needed to feel more instinctive and a bit looser,” Senior Graphic Designer Brigid Johnson explains. “It appears in short, punchy moments – things like sign-offs, little bits of in-space copy, or moments where the brand is clearly speaking to the dog rather than about them.” Johnson drew more than 10 custom dog drawings, including the founders’ pets and the studio team’s own dogs, in a textured, slightly unfinished line style indebted to New Yorker cartooning.

“The drawings are often quite minimal, but they carry a lot of character, and that felt like the right tone for Barkhouse,” she tells us. The linework is more textured than typical New Yorker work, the polish dialled back, the focus put on how each dog actually carries itself – the tilt of an ear, the weight distribution in a stance, the specific shape of a coat at rest. “Personality was everything,” Johnson says of the drawings. “We weren’t interested in generic dog icons. The goal was to make each one feel like a real character.” Because many of the dogs were known to the team, the drawings could draw on specific behaviours.

A second illustration register focuses on location, such as sketched West 25th Street facades and NYC streetscapes, using the same style but with a more architectural construction. The dogs move; the buildings hold still. Weimaraner Grey, Husky Cream, Onyx, Goldie – each colour in the palette was named after a breed, with Goldie referring specifically to one of the founders’ long-haired dachshunds. “If the brand is built around dogs, it made sense that even the palette would be rooted in them,” Crown explains. The naming has a working function as well as a conceptual one.

“It helps the team talk about the palette in a way that’s intuitive, and it reinforces the idea that everything in the brand, even the smallest details, ties back to the core subject.” The brand’s tone of voice operates on a dual register, just like the typography. Composed magazine-style copy carries the longer form material, while shorter lines like ‘No Ruff Days,’ ‘Bone Appétit’ and ‘Welcome to the Pack’ handle the playful work. “The humour should sit within a composed system, not define it,” Crown tells us. “The typography and layout hold everything together, and the playful elements punctuate it.

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The article discusses a unique branding strategy for a niche market, which is significant for the design industry but not groundbreaking, and it offers relevant insights for brand strategy professionals focusing on dual-target audiences.