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...
Phil’s Finest by Gander
It’s a moot point now that the last few years have seen an explosion in all things vegan and ‘plant-based’ (a term arguably used lightly, when you consider the ingredients in many no-meat, no-dairy, no-animal product alternatives). There’s vegan cheese that actually tastes nice, there’s mushroom and hemp ‘magic mince’, even vegan tuna. I’m writing this while eating a vegan...
Number 12 Cider
Number 12 Cider. That’s a gift of a name for a logo designer. Why complicate things? Of course, the skill is in the execution. The win here is in the configuration of the twelve circles into a recognisable and distinctive tree form, and then getting that ‘they’re apples!’ a-ha moment. On pack and online this is dressed this up a...
Beams by Only Studio
The Beams is ‘an expansive new venue and event space on the Royal Docks in the heart of East London’ (that’s as long as you prefer your cartography loosely impressionist). Manchester-based Only Studio was tasked with branding the former Tate & Lyle sugar factory. The award-winning agency has previous form in the field of London industrial-eyesores-turned-cultural-juggernauts: it was also responsible...
GUT by &Walsh
Guts aren’t exactly glamorous. And the connotations of the word ‘gut’ are multifarious: there’s the gory (‘blood and guts’); the Germanic ‘good’; the straightforwardly corporeal; or for those with an interest in newer psychological findings, it’s a wondrous ‘second brain’. Ad agency folk, however, have long taken the word ‘guts’ far outside of the bodily. For many of them, ‘guts’...
Miles by Buddy Buddy
Deodorant isn’t traditionally a hotbed of innovation: for the most part, ‘women’s’ products don an unremarkable raft of white packaging (freshness!); blue, pragmatic type; and vague, rarely-kept promises about lasting for 72-hours. For the men, packs are sombre shades of black, dark blue, or grey (manly!) and just as drearily practical as the women’s. Deodorant, for the most part, has...
Paws Off! by Seachange
Anyone who’s ever had a dog, or just interacted with one, has likely spotted that over and above pretty much anything, food is the centre of their universe. Unfortunately for us, though, it’s not just dog-safe food that they’ll do whatever it takes to get their paws on: human food, it seems, often has the most appeal. But just as...
Marshmallow by Ragged Edge
A marshmallow is sweet, soft, pliable. Yet they are also resilient and surprisingly strong – who among us hasn’t enjoyed watching them perform surprisingly well under a hydraulic press compared to substances that much more obviously scream ‘structural integrity’? Perhaps this soft-yet-strong dynamic is why the name works for an insurance company. Or perhaps, more simply, the name works because...
Frydate by Skinn
Beyond its eye-wateringly strong beers, decadent chocolates, and waffles; Belgium is famous for serving up one beloved belt-buster that’s easy to eat, and deceptively hard to get right: chips. A new Belgian homemade burger and snacks offer, Frydate, positions itself far beyond a humble chippie and into the realm of ‘Belgian frymanship’-led ‘friterie concept’. To help it achieve its ‘insatiable...
smlXL by DIA
As the adage goes, ‘Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime’. With this vivid paradigm of self-sufficiency in mind, we can esteem the advent of creative coding in branding, allowing design agencies to hand brands over to clients as generative tools capable of generating limitless...
Monkey Baa Theatre Co. by Universal Favourite
Theatre is an artform that relies not only on its visual and verbal performance elements, but the text from which all the rest of the more showy aspects are born. An obvious point, but one that often makes me wonder: why do so many theatre companies have such terrible names? Maybe it’s a sort of in-joke, maybe I’m just missing...
Partech by Koto
Certain sectors lend themselves beautifully to innovative, eye-catching design – things like craft beer, perhaps; or beauty; or small-run editorial publications. Investment firms aren’t traditionally among those sectors that engender more outre, bold design work. And that’s partly the reason that this work for Partech, a global tech investment firm headquartered in Paris, stands out. Created by brand and digital...
Wisl by andstudio
Shaking off a hangover on a crisp Sunday morning kick-about with the boys; dunking a perfect basket on a court raked with the long shadows of a high-summer sunset; obliterating Janet from HR in a ‘friendly’ after-work squash game/grudge-match. These vignettes, I am assured by those who participate in such wholesome activities, capture both the hazy idyll and everyday reality...
National Portrait Gallery by Edit Brand Studio
In June 2023, a giant of British cultural life awoke from a three year slumber. The return of the National Portrait Gallery evokes a joy that is made all the keener when one recalls the troubled time in which it closed its doors: March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold and public life evaporated in the announcement of that...
Entrée by Saint Urbain
More than three years since the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, we’re in a strange situation when it comes to all the things that flourished due to lockdown – grocery delivery services like Getir, et al; streaming services that poured literally billions into what once seemed like a never-ending gold-rush of content-consumption; flashy home-centric lifestyle brands like Peloton. Indeed, the...
Loot by Seachange
Where have all the simple playful ideas gone? You know the ones, a bit of wit, spun into a multitude of playful expressions across a number of different touch-points? Design craft has gotten so good over the last few years, but I miss the smile-in-the-mind stuff. Paul Belford’s New Chapter, Seachange’s Think Packaging and Mucho’s Art Walk. They’re not strategic...
Woven by Adam Smith by Magpie
Coworth Park is a grand 18th-century manor-house-turned-luxury-spa-hotel, set among a profusion of wildflowers in a sumptuous patch of Berkshire countryside. It’s part of the Dorchester Collection: ten prestigious hotels scattered across the world, all owned (through the Brunei Investment Agency) by Hassanal Bolkiah ibni Omar Ali Saifuddien III, the Sultan of Brunei. Bolkiah rules as an absolute monarch, and personally...
Natural History Museum by Pentagram & Nomad
If you grew up in the UK, the Natural History Museum is likely synonymous with two things: the massive blue whale suspended from the ceiling, or the equally large diplodocus skeleton. For many British kids, the museum is a childhood staple – either from school trips, or days out with parents who, rather savvily, combine a widespread fascination among youngsters...
Florentia Village by DNCO
On first hearing, ‘Florentia Village’ is a ridiculous name for a warehouse complex in South Tottenham, as if Hyacinth Bouquet had somehow risen from the grave and gained a seat on the borough council in order to render floridly Italianate a grimy chunk of East London. However, the name does in fact arise from an organic nomenclatural etymology: indicating ‘flourishing’ or...
Scapegoats by Strategy
‘Landscaping legends’, what a lovely bit of alliteration and a decent bit of positioning by Strategy for Scapegoats, a New Zealand-based landscaping company. From this, a wonderful tapestry of iconography, illustration and words come to life to construct something of a horticultural mise-en-scène of craft and creativity for Scapegoats duo Kylie and Reuben and their team, which plays out across vehicle...
Food Nation by Seachange
It’s about time plant-based brands found their sense of humour. Having been a vegan for 17 years now, I can safely say that veggie/vegan brands have historically been tiresomely dull – and until recently, they’ve been allowed to be. But with the recent years’ boom in all things ‘plant based’, simply existing because there’s no other type of soy milk...
Sucre by DutchScot
It’s always satisfying to see smart, bold new identity designs for a household name brand, often by one of the big name studios: things like the still-hyped 2021 JKR Burger King rebrand; Collins’ Girl Scouts revamp in 2022; Springetts’ fresh look for Ryvita that same year, which makes the much-maligned crispbread seem a lot more palatable. And while such projects...
Curve Club by Wildish & Co.
For a type-nerd (hello!) there are few things more seductive than a beautiful, beguiling letterform. But what makes such shapes even more siren-like is when they leap off the page and come to life, not just in motion, digitally; but in a physical environment. The branding for new private members club Curve Club, then, certainly ticks a lot of boxes...
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....