Just when you thought we were approaching a post-pet-parent era, a brand comes along and proves very much otherwise. Thankfully, though, while pet parenting seems to be alive and well; fingers crossed we’ve left behind the whole rather icky “fur baby” days of things like dog bandanas that  read, “My Mom is Sooooo Obsessed with Me”; or dog nail varnish; or dogs in handbags that really don’t need to be (we make an exception here of course for the hilarious, multifarious, creative ways in which New Yorkers are getting around the rule that dogs on the subway must be carried in bags).

But while we’re hopefully leaving the fur baby thing behind, it’s also worth remembering that VERY long gone are the days of Trad Dog Owner, all wellie boots and whistles and Pedigree Chum and dogs stealing strings of sausages from the high-street butchers’ shop that shuttered up for good back in 1999.

So where are we now? A sort of midpoint really, where our canine companions are definitely humanised, occasionally to the point of borderline-absurdity, but they’re also very much respected for being exactly what they are – dogs.  

This is the sort of position that dogcare brand Digs sits squarely within. Digs is a dogcare brand with outposts across the US, including various locations in Kansas; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Missouri. Digs offers daycare for dogs, overnight stays, grooming services, training and more, with a range of branded products including toys and dog foods.

The entire brand identity was created in partnership with New York-based agency Saint-Urbain (Cerca, Yoshi, Cob, Buena Fé), which says it helped build the brand “from the ground up”, working across naming, brand strategy, voice, and visual identity. 

“Digs is a modern dog care platform redefining what pet care can—and should—be. Designed for both pet parents and business owners, the brand sets a higher standard for safety, cleanliness, trust, and emotional connection,” says Saint-Urbain.

The name is drawn from the idea “finding your digs”, the agency continues – an interesting approach, but a smart one. ‘Digs’ sounds quite old-fashioned to me – a term that nowadays, I’d argue you only ever really hear used in relation to student accommodation by parents still grasping at some semblance of being ‘hip’. But it works brilliantly here because of another cliche that may or may not ring true: of all creatures aside from perhaps moles, dogs really, really, love digging holes.

That borderline fuddy-duddyness also works pretty well in terms of the sort of brand Digs aims to portray itself to be – one that “captures the feeling of settling into a place that immediately feels right: welcoming, personal, and made with care”, as Saint-Urbain puts it.

Indeed, while the branding is cute and slick where it needs to be, it’s never seemingly trying to be cool: like the very essence of dogs themselves, it’s cute, heart-on-sleeve, eager to please but never, ever pretending to be anything that it’s not.

Because with some brands, the logomark might seem a little too twee – too, literally, and pardon the pun here – on the nose. Yes, the mark is largely a dog’s nose, cleverly built into the sumptuous curves of the lowercase ‘g’ in the Digs wordmark.

Instead though, it’s just the right balance of clever and adorable, and is pared back enough to be superbly versatile across a huge range of different applications: Digs has to live online, on physical products, on printed touchpoints, on large scale and small scale signage, huge billboards, small digital thumbnails and more,so this was a crucial consideration.

That charming wordmark is set in Monotype font Placard Next, an interesting choice for a brand font but one that definitely does its job well here. That aforementioned lowercase ‘g’ is just absolutely gorgeous, and the way Saint-Urbain has reappropriated it as the dog-face logomark is a succinct, masterfully skillful piece of design that wouldn’t be out of place next to those classically clever, coffee table book-worthy brand devices by the likes of Fletcher/Forbes/Gill, à la V&A, etc etc.

Elsewhere in the identity, for subheadings Saint-Urbain opted to use Rebond Grotesk by Swiss foundry Extraset, a typeface that is “both strict and flexible,” according to its creators, with “assertive movement…designed to express a certain sense of neutrality when the details carry a strong identity.” In short, a great typeface for a brand which is strong enough already, but in which a secondary font still has a pack just the right level of interest and personality. 

Finally, for longer text applications, Digs’ identity uses  Euclid Circular by foundry Swiss Typefaces. And it certainly does feel resolutely Swiss, in the best possible way: a functional, geometric typeface constructed of monolinear lines and “leaving behind anything that can be regarded as superfluous,” as its designers summarise.

That sort of no-nonsense legibility was vital for a brand like Digs, which above all, looks to reassure both dog owners and business owners alike`; it needs to convey trustworthiness, high safety standards and expertise while also subtly communicating the sense of emotional connection at the heart of pretty much ny good modern petcare brand worth its salt.

“Pet parents want more than basic care – they want peace of mind. Business owners want more than a logo – they want a brand system they can grow with. The opportunity was to create a brand that balanced emotional warmth with real authority,” says Saint-Urbain. 

The agency did this not only through that masterstroke of a logo discussed above, but through warm, confident copywriting that prioritises clarity as well as a splash of playfulness; and a colour palette that’s both vibrant and stripped back, centering on yellow, pink, and a distinctive shade of muted blue that works really well to convey the trust side of things.

Even when the colours are vivid, they’re only used in pairings of two, keeping the identity from ever being too shouty or overly daft in terms of maximality. 

Aside from the logo and wordmark, for me the absolute standout element here is the suite of brand illustrations: they’re scruffy, sweet, not overly precious and packed with character – just like the dogs they portray. They’re retro-leaning without ever looking like a sort of vintage pastiche, but just traditional enough to underscore once again that sense of established, thoughtful integrity.

According to Saint-Urbain, “Digs needed to feel playful without being precious, premium without being cold, and confident without being corporate” – and this identity has absolutely achieved that, and then some – deftly treading the tricky line between approachability and professionalism.