Brands

Cattle brands can be found all over the town of Medora, and being the typography nerds that we are, they immediately caught our attention.

They are used as a way to distinguish one rancher’s cattle from another, and need to be registered in the state’s brand book. They function as a kind of logo for the rancher and we have seen them on headstones in the cemetery, in the pizza parlor as a way to mark that the cowboy had been in town, in the cowboy hall of fame as another means of identification, as well as being used for simple decoration.



Although the brands are unique to each rancher, they all follow an organizational system so that they can be read by others. A brand is read from left to right, then top to bottom and finally from outside to inside when the brand has one character that encloses another. Special terms are used when a letter is used in a nontraditional way: crazy for reversed, lazy for turned 90 degrees, flying for a symbol that starts and ends with a long serif or horizontal lines, rocking is a symbol set on top of a quarter circle, bar is a line preceding or following a symbol, box is a symbol with a square or rectangle, etc. There can be combinations of many of these terms within one brand.

branding iron:

We found these brands so fascinating because they are using letters and common symbols in a manner that creates their own language. This system of organization recognizes the visual quality of letters in a way that our written language doesn’t always acknowledge. These symbols become the identity of the rancher in a way that a logo becomes the identity of a company. However, unlike logos, there is a system in place that allows someone in the know to be able to read a brand they have never seen before because it's not just an image, it is a language.

Typography. On cattle. Bam.

And here's a little bonus: Two of Abby's uncles and her Grandpa branding:

We've seen their brands around town, so here's a photo of them in action.