Finding a visual identity that captures the feeling—not just the look—of the horror films that inspired it.
Squared Stiff was always meant to be a homage to the horror films I grew up watching and still love today.
That influence was there from the beginning, but somewhere along the way, it got lost in translation.
I was trying too hard to pay direct respect to those films through visual references and replication. The result borrowed pieces of their identity without properly capturing what made them special to me in the first place.
So I went back to the drawing board.
Instead of asking what those films looked like, I started thinking about how they made me feel.
The unease. The darkness. The isolation. The sense that something is nearby, even when you can’t see it. The strange mix of fear and excitement that made me want to keep watching—even when part of me didn’t.
That became the foundation of Squared Stiff’s new visual identity.
The redesign isn’t trying to imitate a particular film, poster or decade. It takes those old influences and turns them into something that belongs to Squared Stiff: its own colours, atmosphere, characters and slightly twisted personality.
It still comes from the horror films I grew up on.
It just finally feels like its own thing.
