Before Words is the creative studio, consultancy, and design practice of Great Lakes-based graphic designer Alex Hancock.

Its focus is creating a process of inquiry and collaboration with artists, cultural institutions, and commercial clients.

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SAFFRON

ONGOING — Social, menus, OOH.

OREHA

2024 — Visual Identity. Designed a logo + wordmark, color palette, and font system.

LIBRARY OF FEELINGS

2024 — Visual Identity. Designed a logotype + stacked and linear wordmarks, color palette, and font system.

BLANK

2023 to 2025 — Working primarily on Y7 Studio social alongside Ryan Heape and on Nikita Walia and Christina Monroe’s newsletter, All Caught Up. Additional design work done across clients as needed.

Sporting Deportes

2023 — Art direction, design. Inspired by the Barton Tower public housing project designed by Evans Woollen in the late 1960s. Designed with and produced by Icarus Football.

Sporting Deportes

2022 — Art direction, design, and social. Scoreline font c/o Bryan Bernard.

Camp Trash

2022 — Art direction and design, The Long Way, The Slow Way. CD, digital, LP. Additional design and direction by Alex Roberts. Photography by Alex Roberts, Jessica Bender, and Keegan Bradford.

Sporting Deportes

2022 — Art direction and type design. Inspired by Robert Irwin’s Light and Space III on display at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Designed with and produced by Icarus Football.