Bottle Packaging
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,...
Agua de Madre by Chris Chapman
It seems you can’t move for well-designed, wellness-adjacent alcohol-free drinks brands right now. In the past couple of months alone we’ve covered a nightlife inspired Yerba Maté that went hard on Big Drink NRG and Rolus, a new botanically enhanced entry into the (apparently) burgeoning ‘braincare beverage’ category. Making it a hat-trick is London-brewed water kefir brand Agua de Madre’s...
Stuzzi by Perron-Roettinger
Hot sauce branding has long been dominated by certain overarching tropes: there’s the hyper-trad (Cholula, Tabasco, Sriracha et al); the twee of the kitchen-table-scale small-batch brigade; and the I WILL RIP YOUR HEAD OFF! camp where products have names like ‘death’. In the first and second of those camps in particular, there’s a lot of decent branding. But this new...
Uoga Uoga Kids by andstudio
Since 2019, sales of beauty products labelled ‘clean’ have soared in popularity, and – as with all consumer trends, from interiors to fashion design – parental preferences influence the marketplace for children’s products as much as adults’. Enter Uoga Uoga (which translates to ‘Berry Berry’), a Lithuanian natural beauty and skincare company founded in 2010 that produces mineral-based makeup as...
Kindred Black by Ania et Lucie
There has always been something borderline magical about the fields of beauty, makeup and skincare – a hint of esoteric or mystical knowledge. When it comes to visual storytelling, this association offers plenty of rich inspiration, along with established style signifiers that are easy to follow. Nods to old-school apothecaries abound in the likes of Typology Paris and Le Labo,...
Matheson Food Company by Wedge
If nostalgia is a powerful force, arguably ‘fauxstalgia’ – that sense of longing and yearning for something that we never actually experienced – is even more so. Fauxstalgia isn’t the same as trend cycles – the baffling realisation that Gen Z is suddenly, unironically, into Nu Metal, for instance – it’s an internal sensation rather than an external observation. It’s...
The Gospel by DDMMYY
Not a new project, but one certainly worth revisiting; this work for whisky brand The Gospel scooped a fair few awards back in 2020, and it’s not hard to see why. The design agency behind everything from strategy and naming to brand story, creative direction, packaging design, and more is DDMMYY, based in Auckland, New Zealand. The team was initially...
Casa Malka by Nihilo
Branding agency Nihilo is more adept than most at shattering stereotypes – both in the work they make, and in terms of who the agency is, and what it’s all about. Founded by designer Emunah Winer and writer Margaret Kerr-Jarrett in Israel in 2021 and now based in Columbus, Ohio, the agency takes its name from the Latin term ‘creatio...
Graza by Gander
Using olive oil has never been so squ-easy. That’s how Andrew Benin, founder of Graza, would like us to feel. As Kelsey McClellan reports for the Wall Street Journal, Benin knew the last thing the world needed was another snobby olive oil and the key goal was finding ‘the sweet spot between flavor and affordability’. This product does feel different...
Divine Farmer by Base Design
International creative studio network Base Design is behind the branding for Divine Farmer, a California-based wellness company with an identity centred on New Age-style iconography and a heavy reliance on storytelling. Divine Farmer was founded by Polina Bowler, an acupuncturist and herbalist and owner of LA-based holistic wellness centre East Meets West who came up with the idea for the...
Eadem by Lotta Nieminen
The skincare industry is a varied visual landscape. At one end of the spectrum, brands like Glossier and Soft Services (reviewed July 2022) have found balance in softness and understated minimalism. At the other Dr.Jart+ (reviewed Jan. 2018) and Malin+Goetz bring pharmacy-chic with functional, type-led packaging. And then we have our classic, heritage brands – like Kiehl’s and Elizabeth Arden – which...