Overview

Ortus is a boutique community of 54 concrete homes near Oak Street and 67th Avenue, in South Oak, one of the West Side’s fastest-growing neighbourhoods. It was also Icona Properties’ first completed project. I named the development, created the brand identity and designed the sales collateral and launch materials.

Finding clarity

A first project carries extra weight. For Icona, Ortus was more than a building. It was the company’s beginning. The name needed to hold that idea for the developer and still mean something to the people who would live there.

Reframing possibility

Ortus is Latin for birth, origin or rising, from a word meaning “to spring from.” It also sounds close to the Italian orto, a garden. That gave the brand two layers. For Icona, it marks an origin. For residents, it’s a promise of growth: a place to flourish. Every line that followed came from that root: live wonderfully. connect. thrive. prosper. the things that matter.

Making meaning visible

The symbol is a young plant rising inside a circle, a seed opening into form. The wordmark is drawn in a high-contrast display face, with a tall, looping t that rises above the letters around it like a new stem. It’s set against a quieter sans for the supporting typography, so the name always has room to breathe.

The palette is a deep navy grounded by teal and lifted by coral, with mint and chartreuse as accents. The imagery follows two threads: simple, warm moments of everyday life, and flora used as metaphor, close and textural, with bursts of colour. The address became a typographic element in its own right, with 8398 OAK set large in the display face.

Building momentum

The identity carried through a sales brochure, digital and print advertising, site and street banners, branded merchandise and a launch video. The video moves from a rooftop at dusk to friends gathered at a table under string lights, and ends on a sunflower opening. The brochure even included a curated Ortus playlist, so people could get a feel for the place before setting foot in it.