@angelmaile
Angel Maile
Founder and Creative Director
Angel decides what the work looks like. Every identity that leaves BOAN has been drawn, argued over and redrawn on her desk, and every piece of print has been checked against a proof before it goes to press.
01Background
- 2021
- Founded BOAN with Bonolo Mathabela.
- 2019
- Senior designer on packaging for an FMCG group.
- 2017
- Design studio in Braamfontein, identity and print.
- 2016
- BA Visual Communication, University of Johannesburg.
Works on
- Brand identity systems
- Packaging and label artwork
- Editorial and layout
- Art direction on shoots
- Print production and repro
She came into the studio from packaging, which is an unforgiving school. A logo that survives a press check at 4mm on a foil label will survive anything a website can do to it, and it teaches you quickly that a mark is geometry rather than a picture.
That is where the studio's discipline about restraint comes from. BOAN's own identity is two colours and one typeface, not because anyone was short of ideas, but because Angel could not defend a third colour when asked what it was for.
She art directs the photography, sets the type on every document the business issues, and is the reason the invoices look like the website. Clients tend to notice that consistency before they can name it.
02Three questions
- What do you look at first in a brief?
- Where the thing will actually be seen. A mark for a shelf and a mark for a phone are two different drawings, and if nobody asks which one it is, you end up with something that half works in both.
- The most common mistake you see?
- Companies buying a logo when what they needed was a decision. A logo cannot settle an argument about what the business is for, and it will not stop the next person from reopening it.
- What are you unreasonable about?
- Print. Nothing goes to press without a proof in the room, on the actual stock, under a decent light. Screens lie about paper.
