When Yann Guilbert, the founder of Septembre, a van customization brand based in Bidart, reached out to me about designing a logo for his business, it felt like the perfect opportunity to put my newly acquired skills to the test—skills I had just developed in my logo design course with Olivier Segers, as part of my graphic design program at LABASAD.

We started with a workshop to define Septembre’s story, positioning, and personality. What became clear is that Yann’s work is a reflection of who he is: passionate, meticulous, and deeply inspired by Japanese craftsmanship—the masters of small spaces. Working only on one project at a time, he creates minimalist, timeless van interiors with clean wood finishes and ingenious designs tailored to his clients’ needs for life on the road. His work is simple yet sophisticated, grounded in nature, and built to last.

After diving into the van industry and researching competitors, I got to work and created three different logo concepts for Yann to choose from. As Olivier Segers often says, "A logo is never just a logo." To help Yann envision their full potential, I built a supporting visual identity for each concept, placing the logos in mockups—magazines, posters, a website, and more. This approach allowed Yann to see how each design could live and breathe in the real world.

Yann fell in love with the first proposal, which you can see below, and plans to use it for Septembre.

The final logo uses a serif typeface to convey a sense of seriousness, quality, and timelessness, standing out in a sea of sans-serif competitors. The semicircle element carries layers of meaning: a sunset, so iconic to van life; a cross-section of wood, central to Yann’s craft; and a symbol of minimalism at the core of his designs.

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Photography: Francisco Gonzalez, Joshua Kettle, Joshua Fuller, Annie Spratt, Tobias Tullius, Nick Sarro, Ross Sneddon, Jeremy Bishop, Chris Andrawes, JR Korpa, Benoumechiara, Wolfgang Hasselmann, Andrew Welch, Derick McKinney, Andrea Sorrentino, Elif Koyuturk.

Typefaces: Libre Caslon, Neue Haas Grotesk.