Macchiato Jersey

The Macchiato design takes its name from the Italian macchiato, meaning “stained” or “spotted.” In coffee, it describes espresso marked with a small amount of milk. Here, we took the idea more literally. Built on a warm off-white ground, layers of cobalt, turquoise, slate blue, deep green, grey, and black appear as splashes, brushstrokes, smears, drips, and stains. The composition has the character of an artist’s palette or a studio wall after years of use, where every new mark overlaps something that came before. Dense areas of pigment give way to open space, preserving the fingerprints, brush marks, and scattered droplets that are normally cleaned up or edited out of finished artwork. Crisp black graphics and Japanese typography spelling “Non-Automotive Department” provide a graphic counterpoint to the loose, analog surface. Small symbols appear almost like stamps, signatures, or fragments collected from the street.