901.683.6693
1770 Kirby Pkwy, STE 118
Memphis, TN 38138
Client: Slovis Commercial
Historic Snuff District
A district-wide brand system rooted in Memphis history.
The Opportunity
When Memphis set out to revitalize the old American Snuff factory complex on the east bank of Wolf River Harbor, the project wasn’t just a renovation. It was the rebirth of a nine-building, century-old industrial site into a living, working, mixed-use neighborhood. The challenge handed to us was bigger than a logo. We were asked to build a brand system that could anchor an entire district — and stretch to cover every distinct property growing inside it — without ever losing the thread of the place it came from.
Expertises
Services
Starting with the Story
Before a single mark was drawn, we went to the source. The factory itself. The artifacts. The old snuff cans. The textures, typography, color palettes, and printing quirks that defined an American manufacturing era. Everything we built for the Historic Snuff District brand was pulled directly from what was already there, waiting in the buildings and the objects left behind.
The logo pays homage to the company marks that once lived on the tops of snuff can lids — confident, slightly ornamental, unmistakably of their era — and works in a tobacco leaf as a quiet nod to what was made here for more than a century. The color and texture palette came straight off the artifacts: aged metals, faded inks, paper grain, factory patina. Nothing was invented. Everything was honored.
The Documentary Short Film
A district with this much history deserved more than a brand book. We produced a mini-documentary telling the story of the American Snuff Company, the workers who built it, and why bringing this corner of Memphis back to life mattered for the city’s future. The film became the emotional anchor for everything that followed — the piece of the brand that explains why before it ever has to explain what.
The District Website
With the identity and the story in place, we designed and developed HistoricSnuffDistrict.com as the front door to the entire neighborhood — a place where prospective residents, tenants, and visitors could feel the history before they ever set foot on the property.
Building the Family of Brands
Once the district had its identity, the work expanded. Each property inside the Historic Snuff District needed its own brand — but every one of them had to feel like it belonged to the same family. The job became a balancing act: distinct enough to stand alone, cohesive enough that walking from one building to the next felt like one continuous place.
Conwood Flats
Built inside the bones of the original American Snuff factory, Conwood Flats is the centerpiece — luxury living units carved into a building that’s been standing since 1912. We designed the logo to fold seamlessly into the district identity, then built the website to match.
But the brand work didn’t stop at the screen. Once construction wrapped, we took the visual system into the building itself with a full experiential design rollout. Custom wall art. Branded signage and decals throughout the property. Floor-to-ceiling wall wraps built from historic imagery and textures pulled from artifacts tied directly to the space. Residents don’t just live in a renovated factory — they live inside the story of one.
Visit: conwoodflats.com
Harbor Side
Harbor Side was a different kind of challenge. New construction designed to live among century-old buildings. We developed both the name and the visual identity, with one job above all: make it disappear into the district. Same family, same DNA, no seams. The website continues the design language established for Conwood Flats so the two properties read as siblings rather than neighbors.
Visit: harborsideatconwoodflats.com
The Kent
The Kent is a one-of-a-kind event venue tucked inside the district, and it needed to walk a finer line than the others. It had to feel like part of the family — but it also had to stand on its own as a destination brand that could compete with any venue in the city. We built a stylized wordmark and icon that nods to the typography of the era, paired with a color palette drawn from the same period but pushed toward something more elegant, more refined. Familiar enough to belong. Distinct enough to be unforgettable.
Visit: thekentmemphis.com
The Result
What started as a logo became a brand ecosystem — a district identity, a documentary, four full websites, a complete experiential design build-out, and naming and visual identity work for properties that didn’t even exist yet when we started. Every piece points back to the same source material: the buildings, the artifacts, and the story of the people who made Memphis what it is.
That’s the kind of work we live for. Story matters most.
