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Intersecting Realities

Work
  1. SCKIntersecting RealitiesArchitecture · Interior Design · 2026
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Independent Practice

How by Why is an independent brand and design practice led by Mark Blackler.

I work directly with founders and teams, bringing strategy and creative direction into the same conversation.

A brief might begin with a name, an identity, packaging, a website or simply the feeling that something isn’t quite right. We use that as a starting point, then work out what the brand actually needs.

Mark Blackler in the HBW studio

Our Philosophy

The answer is rarely in the brief alone.

We ask why before deciding how — looking beyond the immediate request to understand the problem, opportunity or change behind it.

How We Work

Our work begins with understanding.

We don’t run a set process. Strategy, naming, identity, writing, design: we use what the job needs.

(01) Clarify

Understand what exists, what’s changing and what actually needs to be solved.

(02) Shape

Find the position, idea or organising principle that gives the brand direction.

(03) Express

Design the identity, and everything it needs to work day to day.

(04) Support

Stick around after launch, so the brand can grow without losing what made it work.

Contact

If you think we should work together, reach out: mark@hbw.works

Wentworth Falls, Blue Mountains, Australia

Brand is not what you see.
It’s what you feel.

Brand is often reduced to what’s visible, a logo, a colour palette, a system at the end.
But that was never the point.
Brand is the feeling that remains after the interaction.

Strong brands don’t begin with design.
They begin with clarity.

What do you stand for?
Why does it matter?
What should people feel?

When that’s clear, everything that follows becomes intentional.

There is no gap between what you say and what people experience.

When they align, trust builds.
When they don’t, people notice.

Consistency is what turns moments into memory.

We start with understanding.
We shape what it becomes.
We express it with intent.

Not as a deliverable,
but as something people feel.

By asking why, we discover how.
How by why

SCK

PositionIntersecting Realities

Context

Studio Carson Kelly was an established architecture and interiors practice looking to grow, but its existing identity offered little sense of who the studio was or where it wanted to go.

The immediate request was for a new identity. The more fundamental question was how to define the practice in a way that could accommodate its ambitions beyond architecture and interiors.

Role

Brand Strategy
Creative Direction
Visual Identity

Idea

Intersecting Realities.

SCK operates through connection: between architecture and interiors, people and place, objects and art, material and experience.

Rather than defining the studio by a single discipline, the brand was built around the intersections between them.

Shift

This moved the identity away from representing an architecture practice through the conventions of its category.

Instead, SCK could be understood as a broader creative practice — one capable of moving between disciplines without losing a clear point of view.

The underscore became a simple expression of that idea: a point of connection capable of joining different people, disciplines and outputs.

System

The identity uses that connective principle across language, typography and composition.

The underscore acts as both punctuation and device, while a restrained visual system gives the studio’s work room to lead.

Together, these elements create an identity capable of holding architecture and interiors alongside the studio’s wider interests in objects, furniture, lighting, art, materials and culture.

Sectors
Architecture · Interior Design
Disciplines
Brand Strategy · Visual Identity · Digital Design · Motion
Year
2026
Credits
Mark Blackler