There’s a lot to be said for the Instagram-worthiness of, say, a faux-futuristic beauty brand identity that’s all gloopy, metallic, kinetic typography, ‘terminal green’, and unabashedly Gen Z-baiting ‘y2k’ art direction. It’s easy to assume that projects that allow designers the creative freedom for unabashed experimentation – playing fast and loose with legibility and lofty conceptual thinking – are the...
If you’ve heard of Scott’s Cheap Flights, it’s more than likely through word of mouth – it’s the sort of thing shared by a helpful colleague or cousin when you discuss trying to make holiday plans, much like the sage advice to use a private browser when looking at flight prices. And from these fairly humble beginnings, the service –...
Anyone over about 25 would likely feel that of all people, big-time YouTubers aren’t exactly in need of a coffee fix: high-octane, breathless excitement and endless, pause free chitchat don’t exactly scream ‘3pm slump’. However, Irish YouTuber Seán McLoughlin, aka Jacksepticeye – who boasts more than 52 million social media followers, and nearly 16 billion views on YouTube alone –...
While cannabis products still make up a sector overmuch in its infancy, it’s one that’s already birthed its fair share of design cliches – from Camden Market-leaning leaf designs to ‘millennial pink’ trendiness to branding that owes way too much to adjacent sectors, like D2C beauty products or ultra-minimal pharmaceuticals. This recent work from Robot Food, however, manages to demonstrate...
The economics of regional farming, in the face of global market forces, continues to be unfavourable to local producers; narrowing margins and pushing some out of business. Alongside this, unfair and self-defeating politics continue to chip away at a basic message; locally grown food is a good, not just in a regional economic sense, but in terms of the health...
Olssøn Barbieri certainly seems to be on form this year: we recently reviewed the Oslo-based multi-disciplinary design studio’s work for Stereoscope coffee, and now, we’re delving into its smart designs for Chelan Beauty. Marrying clarity, functionality and a decent smattering of the unexpected, the surprises land early with this one: Chelan Beauty isn’t actually a ‘beauty brand’ – as in...
Oslo-based multi-disciplinary design studio Olssøn Barbieri has created the brand identity for Los Angeles-based speciality coffee roastery Stereoscope, working across its packaging design and printed materials with a typography-led approach that celebrates tactility. According to Olssøn Barbieri, Stereoscope is underpinned by a philosophy that sees coffee as a living organism rather than a commodity, and which takes its responsibility to...
Every year an impressive 40,000 humpback whales travel along the Sydney coastline. This annual migration pattern is one of the many awe-inspiring natural spectacles that make the city so unique. It is fitting then, that the New Sydney Waterfront Company chose to revitalise Sydney’s Western Harbour Precinct with an installation of thirty whale tail sculptures, telling thirty individual stories, or...
For decades, Pentagram has been one of the most famous and renowned design consultancies in the world; but when it comes to the charity sphere, music therapy organisation Nordoff & Robbins is far less starry – it’s not, say an Oxfam, or an RSPCA, or Médecins Sans Frontières. Arguably that’s all the more reason for it to bring in the...
‘The story of the internet is the story of life’. Understood in this way, rebranding Malaysia’s challenger internet service provider Time presented the appropriately existentially titled For the People with a daunting task. As legislation in Malaysia shifted, requiring companies like Time to share their infrastructure with other ISPs, competition has grown. As such, Time needed to evolve its brand. What is...
All systems grow. What a fun line. Setting up and positioning Ortto, formerly Autopilot, as the leading marketing automation solution for business. The name is great, a wonderful move forward for the company, and sufficiently taking something technical and inhuman-sounding and giving it a somewhat anthropomorphised quality, easy to remember and providing room for growth into other technologies and services....
The hamburger is an American icon. It conjures associations with all-American diners and drive-thrus, backyard cookouts and family gatherings; American values, such as entrepreneurship, as well as less positive attributes of Western countries, like obesity. The burger’s visual identity is inseparable from its history and has been solidified time and time again as the big fast food franchises conquered the...