RM Sotheby’s is the world’s leading auction house for rare and investment-grade automobiles. In a recent showcase, they unveiled a hidden chapter of Southern California car culture, one that had quietly existed behind locked gates for decades.
Since the late 1960s, Rudi Klein had been assembling an extraordinary collection of rare cars, parts, tools, and automotive memorabilia inside a modest junkyard in South Central Los Angeles. Known only to a small circle of collectors and enthusiasts, the collection remained largely untouched and undocumented until now.
Forth+Back was brought on to develop the full visual identity for The Junkyard, a multi-day auction event honoring Klein’s legacy and offering the public its first glimpse behind the gates. The identity system took inspiration from the visual language of salvage yards and industrial ephemera, including bold stencils, rusted surfaces, stamped serials, and handwritten inventory marks. These influences came to life across printed matter, digital materials, wayfinding, and custom event merchandise, including custom letters fabricated from rusted metal.
Central to the project was a 250-page auction catalog designed to feel equal parts historical artifact and collector’s item. The book meticulously documented the collection and its backstory, pairing detailed photography with archival scans and personal anecdotes. Every design decision, from paper stock to embossed scratches, was chosen to reflect the raw character and scale of the collection itself.
The system was designed to reflect the roughness and richness of the collection, capturing the materials, history, and obsessive detail that defined Klein’s world.
