Malley Design

To the Avardens — board game makers, goldsmiths, and perpetual tinkerers — cannabis is a connector. When done consciously, it’s an empathy-enhancer that calls us back to nature and to our loved ones.

Enter the Lost Loon.

“When a loon calls out at night, it is searching for others,” Brad wrote, “Lost Loon is a call to community.”

Now, about the subject matter: one does not simply make a loon logo in Minnesota without running into headwinds. They’re everywhere and in every style and, as a result, quite tricky to pull off while commanding attention.

When Lost Loon called out to us, the ask had a clear frame: create a visual identity that felt premium, carefully crafted, and environmentally conscious, all organized around a loon that doesn’t look like anybody else’s.

To achieve that, we named our aim this way: whimsical yet streamlined. Something free and playful, evocative of the groovy feeling of the 1970s, while also feeling spacious, controlled, and like high craftsmanship.

The mark presents the bird with body low, wings slightly raised, and looking decidedly different than loons you’re used to seeing. The pose says confidence and craft to its conscious consumer audience, and the angular wings play their part in giving the body a cohesive and visually striking feel.

It’s built in a color palette that takes loose inspiration from nature, but with hues and saturation tweaks that feel both groovy and premium. And while the loon is not a dead ringer for an actual loon, the red eye in the middle keeps just enough of the signature look to be recognizable.

We played with the blend of positive and negative space in a number of our illustration styles, a subtle way to reference the boundary-blurring decade of the 70s without collapsing into cliché.

The Avardens were drawn to circular shapes that felt botanical, so we lent the design some curves to give it an organic feel. Typography pairs Season Mix — an elevated yet organic serif — with the Halyard family for body and subheads, giving the system range without losing cohesion.

That cohesion happens to be the whole point of Lost Loon. Pulling isolated parts and bringing them back together through thoughtfully crafted cannabis. People to nature. Nature to people. And, as the fire crackles and dusk fades on an evening by the lake, maybe even bringing people back to people again.

Case Study: https://malley.design/work/lost-loon/

People assume a refresh is the easy version of a rebrand. It’s often harder, because the wins are small and you have to earn every one.

Hunter’s Reserve, a woman-owned wild-game snack company, came to us wanting to grow into a new audience without throwing away what already worked. Much of what we did, you might not catch at first glance.

We rebuilt the primary logo as a unit: the apostrophe now tucks into the letterforms instead of floating next to them, the arrows lost their old quaintness, and RESERVE finally sits right optically under the wordmark. Small stuff that makes the whole thing feel stronger.

The part we’re proudest of is what came out of it. We pulled the arrow shapes out of the logo and reused them to build an HR monogram and a set of tagline lockups.

The old Hunter’s Reserve meat stick packaging was working too hard and saying too little. Sixteen-plus flavors, colors so primary they all shouted at once, and a type system that never quite resolved—fine for the shelf it was on, wrong for the one Hunter's Reserve wanted to reach next.

So we eased off the loud colors and made the things people actually care about easier to spot. The palette got warmer and more grown-up, flavor notes moved up where you'd actually look for them, and the benefit keywords got room to stand out instead of disappearing into a list.

The originals had no family resemblance and didn’t capture much of what makes each animal itself, so we redrew the whole set to be more distinct and more ownable while still reading instantly as bison, elk, pheasant, gator. We also built full-body versions of most of them for the places, campaigns, environments, etc. where a face isn’t enough.

This is the direction we proposed, icons and all. We’re proud of how the system came together!

Not long after announcing his retirement from the NFL, Ryan Jensen and his wife Stephanie decided to build their forever home in the mountains of Evergreen, Colorado. Enter Saorsa Ranch, a fully off-grid mountain estate whose namesake is the Scottish Gaelic word for freedom.

Built by GILK, this 20,000 square foot home is an absolute unit. They wanted a brand for it. A literal cattle brand, actually, that they could hang on the property gate, press into their garage floor in epoxy, and live on apparel.

Ryan calls himself a Viking. Stephanie is Irish and Scottish. They wanted a cattle brand that was Norse, Celtic, and Western ranch all at once. Sometimes these journeys are three Q&As, hours of meetings, and an 80-page brand strategy deck. This one boiled down to making something that looked cool.

Cool is, in fact, not as easy as it sounds. Especially when you’re trying to make something that’s equal parts Northern Europe and American West ranch. Go too cowboy, and you get a dude ranch logo. Go too Celtic, and you get a tattoo parlor. Slap the two into a sandwich without giving it enough thought—a cattle rope here, a Gaelic knot there—and it looks weird and completely unearned.

The home and its architecture gave us a good start, with an angular frame and corner ticks that give it a form you could stamp onto cattle and other things that get branded. A ranch fence, with its split rail and X-crossed posts, gave the monogram an American West feel while providing a structure. And the rigid, carved feel of the “R” lends it a Norse runic quality without feeling too jarring.

When you step back to view it as a whole, the far-flung inspirations come together to form something surprisingly coherent. Energy that is anti-tyrant, then builds something that stands up over generations. Which is what freedom should probably do, anyway.

The brief called for a full brand identity system, with core apparel to launch. Crew necks, pocket tees, hoodies, trucker hats, each built around the logo, the wordmark, and Best West’s rallying cry.

Now, Midwest pride is actually a bit of a contradiction. We’d rather send you home with leftovers than trumpet our own accomplishments. How do you communicate the quiet confidence of a people who (generally!) don’t have anything to prove?

Overall, we chose vintage nostalgia with 2026 punch. Script and all-caps typography mixed together. Warm, human, graphic enough to live on a hat or a chest pocket without explanation. The cardinal became one of the brand’s most versatile marks, a nod to the regional symbol that shows up in backyards from Minnesota to Indiana.

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A museum piece wasn’t the goal. So we merged the deco bones with a healthy dose of cowboy culture, neon accents, and imagery built around Fun Biz’s actual food concepts. The result is a brand that feels like it’s been part of the fairgrounds for decades. Playful and original, but rooted in something real.

For a space that serves 10 concepts under one roof, the brand needed to unify without flattening. Cavalcade does that. Every touchpoint speaks the same language, but the menu sets it apart. Come because of the brand. Stay for the turkey legs. Or pork belly bacon bites. Or Mexican street corn pizza.

Case Study link in bio.

Trying to get something to “look Minnesotan” can quickly collapse into old cliches, like the design equivalent of telling someone you’re from Minnesota, only for them to reward you with their best impression of Marge Gunderson from Fargo.

But the Minnesota vibe feels earned. Sauna Water is confident, but understated. Here for you, but relying on substance over flash. And happy to be in 68 degrees, but right at home in the extremes of hot and cold. Just like the people who hail from the state we’re proud to call home.

“We knew we needed a seasoned design team with experience creating elevated consumer brands. The team at Malley collaborated closely with us and exceeded our expectations, delivering a brand and packaging system that supported our market positioning, design standards, and aspirations.” — Jeff Vondenkamp, Founder of Sauna Water

Case Study link in bio.
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“The way we’re wired is to be outside,” Jeff says. So no matter how many hours you spent burnt out behind your screen of choice, nature will always feel alluring.

With Sauna Water’s all-natural, often-foraged ingredients, nature felt like an art direction that was both obvious and smart. But instead of pine trees and smoke billowing out of saunas, we chose something subtler. Is it a body of water? Maybe. Light coming through a heap of steam? Buy a can or 12 and tell us what you think. Like sauna itself, it’s less something you understand and more an atmosphere you experience.

The colors double down on the vibes. We kept them grounded in colors you’d actually see in nature while turning the volume down on saturation. The can gets your attention, alright, but it doesn’t have to shout at you to do it.

The logotype is Scandinavian-influenced, with geometric serifs that are beautiful, but in a sound and useful way. Accompanying fonts introduce subtle curves that strike a balance between premium and organic, while giving it a more welcoming touch to pair with the stoic logotype.

Case Study link in bio.

If you’re a consumer scanning the aisles, you spend about 1.5 seconds on any given beverage.

And if you’re the brains behind a beverage that’s N/A, wellness, or both, you probably already felt the crowd around you. Alcohol consumption is down, alternatives are up, and the functional beverage industry is expecting to nearly double between 2022 and 2030.

With so many guests at the party, how do you get eyes to linger on you? That’s the question which came to us from Jeff Vondenkamp, the entrepreneur behind , a casual wellness beverage crafted for the salt, stress relief, and social connection that comes at 175 degrees. A successful partnership with , followed by a Star Tribune feature, led to 6 months of demand that was all ebb and no flow.

Jeff saw an opportunity to seize the moment. He partnered with us to deliver a packaging design that won attention in the aisles and gave them an image that could scale nationally while remaining true to its anti-hustle, pro-people roots.

Case Study link in bio
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Open Door is comfortable in its own skin, and comfortable trading flash for authenticity. The color palette is built on calming shades of gray, which conveys an understated confidence and wisdom.

Still, soft pops of color draw inspiration from the outdoors and Open Door’s cultivator mindset, which moves at the pace of nature.

Don’t get us wrong: creeds are cool, music is nice, and words matter. But for anyone considering a church, it’s people that cause you to stick around long after you’ve walked through the door. And if you ask us, that’s what makes Open Door special.

Case Study link in bio.

If we live in an age of dividing lines, Church of the Open Door defies it at every turn. Denominations? You’ll find every kind of Christian there. Political polarization? The entire political spectrum finds a way to feel at home. Intergenerational relationships dying in the U.S.? Open Door thrives on them. A unified pursuit binds their community together: “Engaging in the struggle of becoming fully alive in God.”

But when Dave Johnson concluded his 38-year run as the church’s visionary leader and Senior Pastor, Open Door faced fundamental questions. Who are we going to be? What will always be true about us? And how do we need to reimagine ourselves going forward?

Shortly after installing Dave Brickey as the new Senior Pastor, Open Door sought our partnership to help answer these questions while putting visual and verbal language to their core vision as a spiritual community.
Our Brand Platform process revealed four core attributes to Open Door’s brand:

Compassionate, Protective, Knowledgeable, Communal

Taken together, these are the ingredients that make up Open Door’s secret sauce. All our work needed to conspire together to show that Open Door really is that kind of community.

Enter, Beloved. Early in our work, that tagline emerged and immediately clicked into place. It’s simple, relationally-driven, and expands on what their name can mean. An invitation to move not just into a physical space, but a community engaged in the struggle of life and faith.