CubeSmart didn’t begin as CubeSmart. It began as U\u2022Store\u2022It \u2014 an established national self-storage chain with hundreds of facilities across the country. The decision to rebrand, and the new name itself, came from the client. What they needed was someone to make that name into a mark \u2014 and the mark into a complete, living brand system that could govern every touchpoint of a national retail operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That’s where I came in. Commissioned as an independent project during my tenure at Cisco Systems, this was one of those engagements that demanded the full range of what I do best: custom type design, proportional precision, and the discipline to build a visual identity system rigorous enough to survive intact across thousands of facilities, dozens of advertising formats, and years of operational use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I designed the CubeSmart wordmark from scratch \u2014 custom-drawn letterforms with proprietary glyph modifications that give the mark its distinctive character and ensure it reads as a composed, unified whole. The cubic icon that accompanies the wordmark is deceptively simple: a three-dimensional form that communicates storage, structure, and spatial intelligence in a single gesture, drawn with the same precision and optical refinement as the letterforms it sits beside. The mark was built in both outlined and solid variants, with stroke weights specified to fractions of the cap height to ensure consistent reproduction across every application at every scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The engagement extended well beyond the mark into a comprehensive graphic standards manual \u2014 the document that transforms a logo into a living brand system. The manual specified everything: wordmark construction and minimum margin rules derived from the proportional relationships within the mark itself; a typographic system anchored by Gotham Condensed Bold for headline use, with precise leading, letterspacing, and kerning values specified for Adobe Illustrator production; disclaimer and legal type specifications; phone number formatting rules; color palette across print and digital applications; and layout proportion grids governing how brand elements relate to each other across every format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That system was then applied across the full spectrum of CubeSmart’s physical and digital presence \u2014 outdoor and large-format advertising, banner and point-of-sale materials in multiple colorway variations, website UI design, and the launch campaign that announced the transformation to the world: “U-Store-It… Reinvented!” \u2014 a line that acknowledged the legacy directly while declaring the ambition of what was coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The standards also covered architectural signage, building facade treatments, interactive advertising templates, and employee uniforms \u2014 the full environmental and operational spectrum of a national retail brand. Every touchpoint, every format, every application governed by the same proportional logic and typographic discipline that begins in the wordmark itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CubeSmart remains in active national use today, visible on facilities across the country. That kind of longevity is the most honest measure of whether a brand identity was built to last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n