Fergus by Principal Studio
Organic food brands often land in the same visual territory as many vegan and eco-conscious counterparts – but when did the pursuit of consumer trust become so entwined with muted colour palettes, illustrated veg and rustic textures? There’s nothing inherently problematic with this combination of design elements, yet it has become a tired and overused formula for brands operating in...
Scapegoats by Strategy
‘Landscaping legends’, what a lovely bit of alliteration and a decent bit of positioning by Strategy for Scapegoats, a New Zealand-based landscaping company. From this, a wonderful tapestry of iconography, illustration and words come to life to construct something of a horticultural mise-en-scène of craft and creativity for Scapegoats duo Kylie and Reuben and their team, which plays out across vehicle...
ZVYK by .Oddity Studio
Most people agree that demarcations like ‘millennial’, ‘Gen Z’ and ‘Gen X’ are redundant – little more than age brackets created for the convenience of marketing teams which have become shorthand for a series of traits we’re expected to believe somehow define an entire generation. It’s curious, then, that for every diatribe against such groupings there’s at least ten more...
Future Observatory by SPIN Studio
SPIN Studio continues its working relationship with the Design Museum (after branding its Waste Age exhibition in 2021 and Wim Crouwel’s first UK retrospective in 2011) by putting its inimitable spin (this won’t happen again, I promise) on Future Observatory, the museum’s ‘national research programme for the green transition’. Perhaps more so than any other studio working today, SPIN has...
Sucre by DutchScot
It’s always satisfying to see smart, bold new identity designs for a household name brand, often by one of the big name studios: things like the still-hyped 2021 JKR Burger King rebrand; Collins’ Girl Scouts revamp in 2022; Springetts’ fresh look for Ryvita that same year, which makes the much-maligned crispbread seem a lot more palatable. And while such projects...
Curve Club by Wildish & Co.
For a type-nerd (hello!) there are few things more seductive than a beautiful, beguiling letterform. But what makes such shapes even more siren-like is when they leap off the page and come to life, not just in motion, digitally; but in a physical environment. The branding for new private members club Curve Club, then, certainly ticks a lot of boxes...
Great Wrap by A Friend Of Mine
Cling-wrap, cling-film, stretch-wrap, Saran-wrap or food-wrap. Wherever you’re from and whatever you may call the ubiquitous, sticky, transparent stuff, it’s been keeping food fresh since 1949, when the first branded form of cling-wrap made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) appeared on the market. Once held up as a mould-thwarting modern marvel, the material is now widely derided as an environmental menace....
Cohere by Pentagram
From Wes Anderson to ‘accepting the job’ and distinctly dystopian new romantic relationship models; in recent years, it’s felt like you can’t move for chat about AI – its weirdest uses, its hilarious shortcomings, and a hell of a lot of scare-mongering about it stealing our jobs. The platform that’s dominated much of the conversation is ChatGPT, an AI chatbot...
Unmind by Ragged Edge
In recent years, employers have been rushing to offer an increasingly elaborate range of workplace perks, from the WeWork style beer on tap approach to sleep pods (begging the question, if you have to sleep at work, is this really a perk at all?) to Ben & Jerry’s rather busman’s holiday-ish promise that employees can take home three pints of...
Ostro by Mucho
Ostro isn’t the easiest of companies to make sense of. Billed as a ‘life science software company’, it straddles a number of different services that are both consumer and clinician-facing. In simple terms, though, it looks to help consumers and healthcare providers alike to navigate the complex, labyrinthine ins and outs of the complex US healthcare system; using software to...
Vineyard Theatre by NB Studio
Much like identity work for art galleries and publishing houses, master brand design for theatre is often neutral, leaving plenty of space for a programme of diverse productions and eclectic marketing images to ‘take the stage’. When everything is in constant flux, there are typically some constants: a straightforward, recognisable wordmark, a distinctive typographic personality, and a consistently tight grid...
Mill by Manual
There’s a lot to be said for the Instagram-worthiness of, say, a faux-futuristic beauty brand identity that’s all gloopy, metallic, kinetic typography, ‘terminal green’, and unabashedly Gen Z-baiting ‘y2k’ art direction. It’s easy to assume that projects that allow designers the creative freedom for unabashed experimentation – playing fast and loose with legibility and lofty conceptual thinking – are the...