Belkov Yacht Company
Brand Design, Web Design
This project was personal. If the name hadn’t tipped you off, it’s worth noting that Belkov Yacht Company was founded by my father. After dropping out of business school in his early twenties and picking up odd jobs around boatyards, he surrendered to his intrinsic love of working with his hands and established his boat building business, never ceasing to continuously hone his craft. I tell this part of his story because it’s intrinsically linked to the business (and brand) he has built over the past forty years, one with national recognition and international clientele. It’s also been a deeply personal motivator as I approach projects of all shapes and sizes—learning from ups and downs, and remembering to give them my all.
I was tasked to build a brand identity that speaks both to the storied past of this locally-cultivated business as well as the unforeseen heights to which it has expanded— planting a foot firmly in the acknowledgement of the past’s hard work while looking deliberately towards the opportunity of what lies ahead.
The master brand mark pulls typographically from the very first logo Larry Belkov etched into wood upon establishing his business in 1980. With some visual refinement to optimize its digital capabilities and the addition of a clean geometric secondary typeface, this logo locks up with the brand’s hand-drawn graphic mark, the inspiration for which is based on the Atlantic Sailfish— a gilled-creature known to many as the fastest in the sea. The Sailfish is nimble, calculated, precise and alluring, all characteristics that along with its inherent beauty, make it one of the most sought-after prizes in the sportfishing world. Its swiftness and intelligence, however, make it an incredibly difficult catch.
Belkov Yacht Company
began as a small local carpentry building a unique maritime style inspired both in form and function by the Chesapeake Bay waterman’s workboat as well as a classic Downeast cruiser and crafted entirely of wood. Though two entirely different categories of powerboats, they share one most notable feature: an elongated open deck behind the helm. For the watermen, it comes in handy when stacking dozens of crab pots that wait to be dropped into the brackish brine below. For the leisure crowd, it functions as a spacious area for gathering, picnicking and indulging in cocktail hours with the best views. Over the years, Belkov Yacht nimbly responded to the times.
When custom-made wood boats were harder to maintain and more expensive than their fiberglass descendants, the company quickly pivoted to market their skillset in fine woodworking with precision and accuracy towards custom-built interiors. The market responded. Today, Belkov Yacht’s clientele is diverse, though many sit in the sport fishing realm and turn to this Annapolis-based team when looking for interior spatial design that is practical, efficient, revolutionary and most importantly, tasteful— characteristics that seem to be lacking on the commercially-built end of things.
