This is the first in a series of studio pro­files fea­tur­ing those who were pub­lished in Print magazine’s Regional Design Annual.The Decoder Ring Design Con­cern is an Austin, Texas based design part­ner­ship founded in 2004 with roots in music and retail iden­tity, design and pro­mo­tion. They received mul­ti­ple honors in Print’s annual, twice for their poster work. Our favorite is a pro­mo­tional poster for the indie pop band The Hold Steady uses the lus­cious Milk Script from Sudtipos.

The other band poster, appro­pri­ately sup­port­ing The Decem­berists’ album “The Crane Wife”, dou­bles as a giant origami crane. Arthur Baker’s Visig­oth font lends just the right kind of Asian cal­li­graphic tone.

The Decoder Ring does more than poster work. Their logo for this year’s SXSW con­fer­ence is instantly rec­og­niz­able. The bold, sten­ci­lesque let­ters look like a simple, but effec­tive rework­ing of Brag­gado­cio. The bulky slab, Dynamo, sup­ports the logo­type well.

One piece that didn’t make it in the Annual is prob­a­bly the design­ers’ largest project to date (phys­i­cally, that is). While employed at McGarrah-​Jessee Adver­tis­ing, mem­bers of The Decoder Ring were asked to create the logo for Whataburger Field in Corpus Christi, Texas. “During the devel­op­ment process, it became appar­ent that the smart approach was to first create a sign for the field, and then build the logo around it.” The logo is anchored by a sturdy sans serif with a foot in the pre-​War past: Cyrus Highsmith’s Stainless.