It’s all in the rhythm: Laura Clink’s brand for GOYA, a social platform for yoga, flows like poetry

For London-based brand designer Laura Clink, working on the identity for GOYA – a social platform celebrating the practice of yoga – hit a personal note. “As someone who has practised yoga for years (with fluctuating levels of commitment), I am very familiar with the intimidating nature of the yoga space,” Clink tells us. Thanks to her experience, she understood that as a beginner, turning up to practice with seasoned yogis “floating in perfect arm balances” can feel especially daunting. So when the founder of GOYA approached her to “decode the yoga space and make it more accessible for the masses, it was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down,” she shares. The basic idea of the design system was born from a quote Clink came across quite early on in the design process. It read, “Yoga is a dance between control and surrender.” This thought is translated into an expressive typographic treatment, almost as if the text is breaking into a dance of its own. Long lines of text are chopped up and then strung together, following the contours of a body bent in an asana, locked in a circle, or at times, flowing like a waterfall of words. “I wanted a simple typographic structure that has strict parameters, yet also embraces moments of freedom where the type can venture off on its own path,” adds Clink. “It felt appropriate for the text arrangements to mimic that of poetry, an art form that relies on rhythm and the rise and fall of the voice, much like how yoga relies on the rise and fall of the breath to create rhythm and guide the body.” To bring this choreography of text to life, Clink chose TT Firs Text by TypeType as the only typeface to be used through the brand. Its utilitarian quality lets Clink’s creative direction shine in the spotlight, instead of drawing too much attention to itself. The wordmark too, is set in the hero typeface, although Clink added a detail to it – an underline under the ‘O.’ This nods to the practice of ‘surya namaskars’ or sun salutations, a tradition performed at sunrise, and incorporated into a wide range of yoga practices. “The underline signifies this rising of the sun,” explains Clink, “and draws attention to its significance.”