There has never been more awareness of allergens and inflammatory ingredients, with lupins and sulphites now on the mainstream radar alongside common culprits like gluten and dairy. At the same time, nostalgia and anemoia (‘a feeling of yearning for a past that you never experienced’) have become driving forces shaping contemporary tastes.

Direct-to-consumer cereals neatly bridge a gap in this market, offering healthier, nutrient-dense alternatives to childhood favourites – fun, but increasingly also ‘free-from…’ . In fact, the cereal segment is expected to be the fastest growing category in global breakfast foods, predicted to expand from $398 billion in 2020 to $729 billion by 2030. That’s a lot of crunchy nut-free cornflakes.

Caragh Keane founded the gut-friendly cereal company Superkeen because of her own experience with lupus. The brand seeks to support an ‘anti-inflammatory lifestyle’, catering to those on an auto-immune protocol diet, those avoiding allergens, and those simply looking for a ‘cleaner’ breakfast staple. ‘Superkeen is the most inclusive food brand in the UK’, the brand claims online in its mission statement.

Hero ingredients include cassava, tiger nuts (which aren’t actually nuts, but in fact little tubers), date syrup, coconut oil and sugar, while gluten, dairy, seed oils and nuts are avoided. The current product lineup includes ‘The Original’ (‘deliciously sweet baked cereal’), ‘Cocoa Crisp’ and ‘Cinnamon’, sold in 300g packages. This past April, Superkeen’s recipes won an innovation award at the Natural & Organic Food Expo 2024, so they must be doing something right.

To create a brand to match the recipes, multidisciplinary London-based creative studio, B&B, was entrusted with developing Superkeen’s brand strategy, naming, copywriting, visual identity, packaging design, web design and brand world. The studio opted to convey the sense of being inflammation-free with an anthropomorphic mascot named ‘Cloud Guy’, notable for his rounded graphics and soft, curved textures.

While ‘Cloud Guy’ is the hero in this story, representing lightness and relief, other characters in the Superkeen universe are benevolent fiends standing in for excluding ingredients and the negative emotions gut discomfort might cause. ‘Gluten’ is a loaf of sandwich bread with a vacant stare and jutted-out tongue. ‘Nut’ is a peanut holding a bindle while frowning. Seed Oil is a smirking sunflower, while Dairy is a cowboy.

These characters illustrations are drawn in a naive sketch style; the width of the lines and curves is uneven, as if drawn with a fountain pen, or with a pencil that’s getting progressively blunter. Subtle shading has a markedly hand-drawn feel too – it’s not too refined, yet adds dimension – while the limbs evoke ‘rubberhouse animation’ aesthetics with their wobbly, soft curves.

Meanwhile, B&B studio also designed a bespoke all-caps wordmark for the brand, in an arch to frame Cloud Guy. The effect is playful, but not trivial. Alongside this, the colour palette feels both timely and nostalgic, consisting of periwinkle purple, a soft coral, a highly saturated yellow and a bubblegum pink. They align closely with some of Pantone’s recent Colours of the Year, such as 2022’s Very Peri, 2021’s Illuminating and 2019’s Living Coral – which is interesting to observe.

The selection of bright saturated hues can also be strongly associated with childhood, especially when paired with comfort food. Competitors such as Magic Spoon, Surreal, and Crispy Fantasy employ a similar approach to colour, but while they lean into a groovy, psychedelic aesthetic, Superkeen brings about feelings of cosiness and familiarity. In terms of visuals, it shares the most similarities with Off Limits, which stands out for its original characters designed with an intricate use of linework.

It’s clear that in a short space of time this new cereal category has developed its own category codes, which Superkeen exemplifies with a charming and slick brand system. But is there space on the shelf for all these products and their mascots, or will one cartoon character ascend to capture our hearts? Only time will tell.