Interview
Layla Haddad on rebuilding an identity around a scale
The Mizan team on why the mark had to measure rather than illustrate.
2 min read
Interview · July 30, 2026
Watch the interview
Mizan Rebrand took gold in Brand Identity Redesign and bronze in Logo Design off one pool of votes. Its lead designer explains why a freight identity had to be built on a unit rather than a picture.
What an entry has to prove
The entry form asks for the brief as it was given, not as it is remembered. Jurors read the constraint first, because a piece that solved a hard problem modestly is a different achievement from one that solved an easy problem beautifully.
Credits belong to the people who did the work. A studio may enter, but the record carries the names of the practitioners, which is what makes the archive useful to somebody hiring three years from now.
Entering as a small studio
The tiers exist so that a two-person studio is not asked to look like a network agency. Freelancers compete with freelancers, students with students, and the same four criteria are applied inside each.
The most common avoidable loss is a strong project entered in the wrong group. Read the sub-category description before the deadline, not after: the group sets which criteria carry weight.
About this conversation
The conversation was recorded for the programme and edited for length. The full transcript is above the related posts, so nothing said here depends on being able to play the film.
Transcript
The film is edited for length. This is what was said.
On what the brief actually asked
Mizan Rebrand took gold in Brand Identity Redesign and bronze in Logo Design off one pool of votes. Its lead designer explains why a freight identity had to be built on a unit rather than a picture.
The constraint was the useful part. Once it was written down properly, most of the options disappeared on their own and what was left was arguable rather than arbitrary.
On entering
Read the sub-category before the deadline, not after. The group decides which of the four criteria carry weight, and strong work loses every year for being entered where its strengths are not counted.
