The chintzy rose; the bright but slightly dusky pink; the multifarious wordmarks; the apparently haphazard, painterly decorative flourishes; an approach to letter sizing that’s borderline unhinged – the branding for Makan has the potential to be all kinds of terrible. Instead, it’s absolutely the opposite, thanks to the deft hands at Foreign Policy (Park Bench Deli, Project Send, Critical Mass)....
If you had to guess what 3TEMP is and does, it’s hard to imagine many people would come up with the right answer: with no prior knowledge of the company, it sounds like the sort of thing a half-arsed episode of Black Mirror could come up with – some kind of temping agency but everyone is actually AI, or perhaps...
Another day, another soft drink with a wild new angle: in the last year or so we’ve undoubtedly seen some impressive entrances to the category, from the shouty Yaté yerba maté to ‘braincare beverage’ Rolus to London-brewed water kefir brand Agua de Madre, to the unhinged Y2K lunacy of Fhirst. Now, meet Xochi, a prebiotic agave soda made with 100%...
Early days for sure, but this is hands down the best brand identity design I’ve seen this year – kudos to Saint-Urbain for once again putting a project out into the world that’s not only an absolute joy to look at, but which shows a razor-sharp nous for branding that’s both searingly zeitgeist and resolutely, timelessly future-facing. Said project is...
What with it being the season to be jolly and all that, it feels almost contrarian to not be as positive as I usually am in covering projects for BP&O – after all, it’s about showcasing the very best in brand design and packaging. But in the spirit of the ‘O’ for ‘Opinion’, it’s tricky to be as nigh-on-unanimously gushing...
Restaurant brand Momofuku began life with its New York Noodle Bar in 2004 and in the two decades since, has opened more than 15 restaurants across North America, each building on founder chef David Chang’s vision of boundary-pushing cuisine. Since its naissance Momofuku “became known for reshaping Asian-American cuisine and challenging dining conventions with a bold and innovative approach,” according...
Based in Quebec, MAG is a family-run, family-recipe-based range of condiments anchored by its signature mayonnaise but also comprising dressings and Asian-inspired sauces. The brand made something of a splash earlier this year with its innovative solution to keeping mayo cold in situations like summer barbecues: creating labels using an ultra-thin layer of silica aerogel – an insulator developed by...
It takes a skilled pair of hands/creative agency to make you fall in love with a fictional character (lore-laden backstory and all) who is literally a big blob of fat. But as has become increasingly apparent over the years, Universal Favourite (The Dinner Ladies, Monkey Baa Theatre Co., LBDO) is more than a skilled pair of hands – I honestly...
Olive + Gourmando is a Montréal bakery, café, and restaurant that opened its doors in 1998 and has since become something of a culinary institution. With its expansion to a second location, Caserne – a design studio also based in Montréal – was brought in to refresh its identity. The aim of the project, according to Caserne, was to “support...
If there’s something we’ve come to rely on Saint Urbain totally nailing, it’s a wordmark. Even the most cursory glance across their recent projects affirms the agency’s knack for a grabby, smart, playful yet sublimely appropriate approach to brand type, and this new project is no exception. The work in question is for Cob Foods, for which Saint Urbain (Buena...
If you’re reading BP&O, you’re more likely than most to be the type who knows their counters from their stems; their terminals from their tittles, and so on. In short, a TypeNerd – categorically one of the best kinds of nerd. And what do nerds like? Hyper specific ‘injokes’ that aren’t exactly striving to be funny, perhaps you might call...
Our seemingly indefatigable fetishisation of the ghosts of branding past (i.e. why the design world is still talking about JKR’s Burger King rebrand nearly half a decade on) is perhaps little surprise: whether we’re consciously doing so or not, and to whatever extent we’re even aware we’re looking at something archival, returning to an amorphous yesteryear — real or imagined,...