Corte is a small film studio in Lyon that shoots and edits short films for brands and documentaries. The name means cut. The studio wanted an identity that looks at home on a set, among cables, stands and tape, rather than one that only works on a screen.

Black and signal red

The palette is black and one red, the red of the light on a camera when it’s rolling. Everything is one or the other: black cards and red cards, black boxes sealed with red tape. There is no grey and no second accent.

The wordmark is built from straight strokes only, each letter sliced once at the same angle, like a cut in an edit timeline. It holds up printed 12 mm wide on tape and as tall as a poster.

Made for the set

A film studio is seen most by the crews and clients on set, so most of the budget went on things people use there:

• Clapperboards with the wordmark on the arm.

• Red gaffer tape printed with the name every 30 cm.

• Cards in black and red, stiff enough to tape to a monitor as a label.

• Stickers for the editors’ laptops and anyone who borrows a drive.

• A red poster for the studio wall.

The tape does the most work. It labels cables, marks positions on the floor and closes every box that leaves the studio, so the name turns up in other people’s photos from the set.

The launch box

To announce the studio, Corte sent 120 black boxes to producers and agencies around Lyon. Each held a stack of cards, a USB key with the showreel and a roll of the red tape, and each was sealed with that tape and wrapped in bubble wrap, the way kit arrives on a shoot.

The box took a week to design and a day to pack. Most of the first jobs came from people who had kept the tape.