Emily Gosling
Phoenix Organics by Marx Design
It’s a tale as old as time: a once beloved brand – a pioneering brand even, the first of its kind or category – that gets rather lost over the years, muddled in a confusion of sub-brands and spin-offs. Such brands often fall victim to a sort of design by committee – and rarely intentionally: as companies grow and expand...
Wolfe Bros Cellos by OurCreative
The likes of Strawberry & Lime Kopparberg and Old Mout Cider (pronounced, either ‘moot’, or ‘mowt’, few know, few care coz that cute little kiwi bird is so distracting) are both, let’s face it, the semi-grown up, pretty acceptable face of alcopops: people order them at very normal (even gastro!) pubs and no one bats an eyelid – the same...
ITO Gin by Analogue
ITO Gin is first and foremost, brilliantly eyecatching – huge fluorescent letters, the epitome of ‘make it big’ when it comes to a brand name; deep black bottles – behind this bold exterior lies a narrative woven across cultures, histories, and generations. The brand was born of a collaboration between Komaki Distillery in Japan and UK-based gin brand Kokoro. However,...
Fire Island Tea by Stephen Moss
Fire Island has always seemed far more a mythical utopia than a real, physical geographical, location to me; in part simply because of its name: Fire Island seems wrenched straight out of Greek legend – elemental, fearsome, alluring, almost a contradiction as surrounded by water yet inherently burning. But mostly, it’s thanks to Frank O’Hara, whose mid-20th-century poetry eschewed the...
Cashflow Vodka by Marx Design
Few brands dare to break the fourth wall, and all too often those that do, do it badly. Some smash through that wall Mr Blobby style – sure, it’s fun, but it’s so bold that it feels a little ridiculous, à la Brewdog’s ADVERT adverts by Uncommon. Some try to be a ickle-wickle bit clever but land on saccharinely twee:...
Windham Campbell Prizes by Pentagram
Back in 2013, Michael Bierut’s team at Pentagram (Twelve Labs, Becan & Natural History Museum) created the identity for Yale University’s inaugural Windham Campbell Prizes, a major literary award that honours outstanding achievement in the fields of fiction, non-fiction and drama. Bestowed by the estate of the writer Donald Windham and his companion Sandy M. Campbell, the awards are administered...
12 by Base Design
If New York really is the city that never sleeps, that’s in no small part thanks to coffee – and now, increasingly, a newer entrant to the socially acceptable uppers scene, matcha. Capitalising on the growing interest in the sludgy green pick-me-up is 12, a new-ish matcha-centric café and retail store that opened last year in Manhattan’s NoHo area. Sited...
Big Cartel by How&How
Big Cartel launched in 2005 as a low-cost, easily customisable ecommerce platform specifically aimed at artists and other creatives. In the two decades since, the platform has quietly revolutionised what it is to be an independent maker, powering more than $2.5 billion in sales from ceramicists, jewellery designers, illustrators, and the occasional medieval tapestry revivalist. But as the marketplace for,...
Tsukiyo by The Colour Club
I’d never really heard of Osaka’s Dotonbori district before encountering this project, let alone been there. Neither, I’d guess, have many of the patrons of Tsukiyo, a modern Japanese street food restaurant inspired by the area and based in Sydney’s Darling Square. But the power of great branding is such that even just looking at the identity in 2D, on...
Klangwelt Toggenburg by Studio Marcus Kraft
Klangwelt Toggenburg (which translates as ‘sound world Toggenburg’) is a cultural organisation that manages to marry a devotion to the experience and exploration of (you guessed it) sound, with breathtakingly gorgeous (as far as I can tell from Google Images, anyway) mountainous natural landscapes of the Swiss Alps, and some serious architectural chops to boot. Klangwelt Toggenburg began life more...
BRiMM by Harriman Steel
Combining an online shop, journal, and collective, BRiMM describes itself as a platform for ‘planet-positive living’, drawing together some big ideas and ruthlessly sustainable brands. Based between London and Stockholm, it was founded last year by James Haycock, who’s billed as, ‘an exited founder, angel investor, and the vision behind’ it all. The fact the whole thing looks so great...
Church by Porto Rocha
Naming your company ‘Church’ is, it’s probably fair to say, a bit of an edgy move. Some might even go as far as to suggest it to be sacrilegious. But here, in the case of this proverbial temple of film post production, Church seems to really fit – and without even the faintest hint of edgelordery about it all. And...