Responses by Hamish Smyth, founder, Order Miami.
Background: Bakehouse, an artist community and studio space that has supported artists in Miami for decades, is one of the pillars of what has become a flourishing local industry. It’s turning 40 in 2025, and the building it occupies—a decommissioned bread-baking factory in Wynwood, Florida—is turning 100. To celebrate, Bakehouse planned an exhibition titled Bakehouse at Forty: Past, Present, Future.
The exhibition is split into three physical spaces within the building: Past, which showcases the history of the organization; Present, which features an exhibition of work from current Bakehouse artists; and Future, which contains models and information about the site’s new masterplan led by Michael Maltzan Architecture—an updated studio building and a new residences building with affordable living spaces for artists. Our assignment was to design a visual identity for the exhibition, signage and wayfinding for the event and exhibition, as well as marketing materials.
Design thinking: When you walk into the Bakehouse, you see studios for a wide range of artists working across many different media. By nature, it’s a creative but messy space, full of works in progress. The challenge was to create a sub-identity for the anniversary event that felt connected to what already existed, but that was a mix of disparate graphics accumulated over many years.
We decided to create a system for the event that had a uniform look and feel, giving the Bakehouse team a flexible, cost-effective design system that would visually stand out while still aligning with the existing environment. To achieve this, we developed six rules to guide the design system: use different types of applications for signage, wayfinding and graphics; embrace imperfections that reflect the Bakehouse environment; use simple, fast applications like tape and stick-on decals; incorporate the existing identity and the colors red, yellow and blue as a key component; use bold colors from the Bakehouse identity and make sure they stand out in the space; and to break the rules a bit.
Challenges: It’s always a challenge to work on a sub-brand under an existing identity. In this case, we were also creating a sub-brand that was an event as well as something semi-permanent. Along with that, the current Bakehouse identity is not super well defined (and probably needs more work in the future), but in a way, that gave us more freedom as there were no existing guidelines to work from. We were able to create something that stood out from what Bakehouse currently uses.
It meant, however, that we needed to be very consistent. Everything we did needed to feel cohesive or it would get lost in the space. So, we were very strict on using the brand colors; red, primary red, yellow and blue. We stuck to one typeface throughout, ensuring that things we had done for the exhibition were clearly part of one visual program.
Favorite details: As a designer, it’s always great to work with artists—or really anyone in any creative field. Graphic design and art go hand in hand, and working with clients who share sensibilities is a real treat. Beyond that, I’m proud that we were able to do this project at a pro bono rate and support the work that Bakehouse does for local artists and the work they’ve done over decades to help develop Miami as a destination for fine art.
Specific project demands: The two biggest constraints were how we would design something that would stand out in a space full of visual art and how we would navigate and direct people through a building known colloquially as a chaotic rabbit’s warren. Since we were working with a nonprofit organization, we had to be clever in suggesting design solutions that would be fast and cost-effective to produce and install. As the saying goes, “You can have it fast, cheap or good, but you can only choose two.” I like to think that, in this case, Bakehouse got all three.
We went from the first meeting to the event opening in roughly three months. That seems like a decent amount of time, but nearly half of that was reserved for production and installation, which was printed and installed fantastically by Creative Creative here in Miami. That timeline wasn’t necessarily a demand by the client but a natural constraint that came with when were brought on and the timing of the anniversary. It definitely made the project harder, but we got everything ready in time. Apart from a few last-minute installs, everything was there and looking great on opening night.
What made the project easy was Bakehouse’s fantastic attitude led by Cathy Leff, who really respected the work we did. Throughout the process, she pretty much said yes to everything that we proposed.
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