Home and Garden
Diggin’ it
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;...
HotDog by SMLXL
From the moment I turned the sound up (as per instructions) on the ‘about’ page of the HotDog website, safe to say I was obsessed with this brand and its branding. It’s laugh out loud hilarious – I truly loled, as did the person I was sharing a room with, and as I’m sure anyone within eye- or ear-shot would...
Eat Dirt by Cachete Jack and Marta Veludo Studio
The best branding and packaging projects – or at least the ones that most excite this slightly jaded old design hack – are those that not only take a category and do something genuinely innovative within it, but the ones that rethink structure as much as style. The identity for Eat Dirt does all that and more, and so safe...
So Energy by Studio Blackburn
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s all well and good making some striking, retina-toastingly fluoro, brave as hell design work for, say, a kombucha startup or CBD lube or a record sleeve or an art book. These things are by dint of their very existence, context, and audience, already sort of cool. But the real creative...
Bugg by Seachange
Bugg is a New Zealand-based gardening brand founded earlier this year as the sibling of garden tools and accessories retailer Gubba. It bills itself as “premium products for people who live in the garden,” but its charming brand design definitely goes harder on the latter half of that clause than the former. Not that it looks cheap by any means...
Ding by Wildish & Co.
When I left the UK and landed in the Czech Republic – my home between 2010 and 2018 – I found a notable difference in advertising and branding between the two countries. Specifically, I saw an abundance of brand mascots. Now, of course, mascots were also used in the UK and have a global historical precedent, but I was struck...
Lunge by Porto Rocha
With trend-forecasting agency WGSN identifying ‘multi-species homes’ as one of the ‘top trends of 2024’, the global market for pet products is project to hit £28.75 billion by 2025 – and this excludes the food category. Even furniture design is increasingly influenced by the penchants of our four-legged friends. Catering to this pet-first design movement, Liberty London, Prada, Louis Vuitton...
Ginori 1735 by AUGE
Florentine design studio AUGE has created a sumptuous range of packaging for Italian luxury homeware brand Ginori, which was founded in 1735 as the Manifattura di Doccia by Marquis Carlo Ginori on the grounds of his villa at Doccia. Nearly three hundred years later, the venerable brand finds itself owned by Gucci, following a merger with Società Richard (and subsequent...
New York Botanical Garden by Wolff Olins
It must be something of a dream project when an agency gets commissioned to work on those big-name cultural clients – museums, art galleries, orchestras, theatre companies, et al. You’d expect such projects to be a departure from the constraints and stakeholder-limitations of corporate clients; and perhaps a chance to be more creative than usual, thanks to the nature of...
Omlet by Ragged Edge
We’re undeniably in an age of pet care 2.0: the post-fur-baby era, where people are finally beginning to see their animals’ needs and wants as independent to their own (i.e. dried pigs ears over vegan dog treats, eschewing leads for cats, and so on). These shifts in how we think about what it means to have and look after animals...
Parkette by Kinoto
Cute, bright, and striking; there’s very little not to love about this identity for Parkette. Based in Hamilton, Canada, Parkette is billed as a boutique shop ‘dedicated to kids and the kids at heart’, selling crafts kits, clothes, accessories, books, homeware, toys, and ‘other treasures’. The name is taken from a term many locals in Hamilton use to describe a...
Great Wrap by A Friend Of Mine
Cling-wrap, cling-film, stretch-wrap, Saran-wrap or food-wrap. Wherever you’re from and whatever you may call the ubiquitous, sticky, transparent stuff, it’s been keeping food fresh since 1949, when the first branded form of cling-wrap made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) appeared on the market. Once held up as a mould-thwarting modern marvel, the material is now widely derided as an environmental menace....