Local Studio embraces the parenthesis for Marie Antoinette’s rebrand

After 15 years shaping France’s public relations landscape, Paris-based agency Marie Antoinette recognised that its visual language no longer reflected where it had arrived. The agency had evolved into a force balancing strategic communication with cultural storytelling, corporate rigour with creative instinct. What it needed was an identity that could hold all these modes without collapsing into either corporate stiffness or dated sophistication. Local Studio’s solution centres on a single typographic gesture: the parenthesis. Rather than decorating the identity, it functions as a structural device that opens space for perspective and conversation. This seemingly simple mark becomes the foundation for an entire visual system built on pause, rhythm and editorial restraint. The parenthesis emerged after they explored more literal territories. Early concepts played with separating ‘Marie’ and ‘Antoinette,’ typographic dualities and references to royal heritage. “But these ideas felt too literal, and echoed territories the agency had already explored in the past,” Co-founder & Creative Director Matthieu Teyssandier explains. “The main intention was to express openness, a sense of creative freedom, and to move away from the rigidity and static nature of the former identity. The parenthesis emerged as a gesture of transition: a way to open up the brand, to embrace digital culture and to introduce a more flexible, living system in motion.” The typographic approach pairs Arnika Regular by Michael Hochleitner with Suisse BP Regular, creating what Co-founder & Creative Director Thibaud Allie describes as embodying one of Marie Antoinette’s core narrative gestures. “This combination plays on contrast, the stateliness of Arnika balanced by the precision and rigour of Suisse BP,” he shares. “Together, they embody the ‘step aside’ that the parentheses represent. It’s a typographic dialogue that reflects the agency’s dual nature: firmly established as a leading player in French public relations, yet deeply rooted in creativity and contemporary culture.”