Vintage Arab cassette tapes inspire Sometimes Always’ warm identity for Fatouh Harissa

Since we last caught up with Sometimes Always, the studio has been charging ahead with a bunch of exciting projects in the cultural sphere, both commissioned and self-initiated. The team – Gabriel Finotti, Solenn Robic and Renata Sá – have worked on identities for art exhibitions in Berlin and Rio, crafted record covers for independent labels from Sao Paulo to Stockholm, developed brands for institutions such as Public Records in New York City, and even found themselves with a few new editorial projects under their wing – another issue of Dolce Stil Criollo, to name just one.

One brief that landed on the design and art direction studio’s desk at the end of last year came from the team’s close friends Lamia Hatira and Alia Mahmoud, co-founders of textiles brand Fatouh Harissa. Fatouh Harissa is an independent fashion brand that the team have previously worked with on a few different T-shirt designs. First, in 2022 to first raise money for a centre for immigrant women in Sao Paulo, and then in 2024 for Gaza Medical Tent, a charity providing healthcare in Gaza. This time, the brand approached them in the middle of a sizeable shift. “2025 marked a big change for them as they moved their operation from the US to Brazil and this is why we were invited to work on their rebrand,” shares founder Gabriel.

Although the label started in Brazil in 2018, it’s traditional Foutas (handwoven, flat textiles) are currently crafted by artisans in Tunisia, the founders’ homeland. With a shift of production to Brazil, Foutah Harrissa’s goal was to “visually connect the brand to the country”, without cutting ties to Tunisia, shares lead designer Solenn. The team decided to preserve aspects of the original branding, such as its English and Arabic wordmark. Design wise, they took a bolder approach to the all caps Roman wordmark with a tighter, chunkier version of the type, filling it in with a much more fiery red than the brand’s original burgundy, which, “more directly evokes the spice of the harissa in the brand’s name”, Solenn tells us. This then led the design to “warm, earthy tones such as brown, yellow, and pink”, throughout the rest of the design system.

Framing became an important device for the studio’s art direction across the project. Beyond it’s wordmark tweaks, Sometimes Always wanted to give the textiles brand strong enough visuals to mark campaigns and launches, without relying on a logo as its signature. “Our initial mood boards and references drew heavily from vintage Tunisian and broader Arab cassette and vinyl visuals, often rich in elements and framing,” shares Solenn. These graphic references fed into a series of simplified but decorative geometric frames that give images more expression. Wheat paste posters, printed labels and the brand postcards look sun-kissed and dog-eared, like a good book you’ve been reading all summer at the beach.

This handcrafted and imperfect approach to print formats and image treatment aims to “echo the craftsmanship behind Fouta Harissa”, Solenn explains, “creating a constant dialogue between the identity and the product”. Like many of the studios visual identities this was a way to let the product take centre stage – rather than the brand name, in the soft film shots of the textiles against backdrops of Brazil’s landscapes.