Åhléns by Happy FB
Posted: February 25, 2019 Filed under: Logo Reviews, Retail | Tags: Art Direction, Bag Design, Brand Identity, Brand Identity Reviews, Branding, Branding Blog, Branding Reviews, Design Blog, Design For Print, Design News, Design Opinion, Design Reviews, From Scandinavia, Graphic Design, Graphic Design Blog, Logo Design & Branding Blog, Logo Design Inspiration, Logo Design Resource, Logo Designs, Logo Opinion, Logotypes, Retail Logos, Still Life in Brand Identity Design, Swedish, Swedish Design, The Best Brand Identities of 2019, The Best Logo Designs of 2019, The Very Best of 2019, Typography, Wordmark Design Comments Off on Åhléns by Happy FBOpinion by Richard Baird
Åhléns began in 1899 as a small mail-order business. Aside from it being one of the oldest it has also grown to become one of the largest retail chains in Sweden. By carefully collating a variety of items across brands and price categories, the retailer maintains its relevance today, understanding and responding to the many ways in which its customers have changed over its long history. Happy FB, the Scandinavian design studio behind Åhléns new visual identity, puts it simply “to Åhléns’ urbane and socially conscious patrons, shopping and sustainability are not contradictions. Inspiration and trends do not equate to use and discard. Premium can be inexpensive and cheap doesn’t necessarily mean a drop in quality”. The retailer’s new visual identity expresses this by taking the well-established Åhléns wordmark and single red and builds this out into a range of changing graphic expressions, imbuing a variety of touchpoints, material and digital, with more character whilst retaining a recognisable immediacy through simplicity.
Kaiyo by Pentagram
Posted: February 18, 2019 Filed under: Art and Design, Logo Reviews | Tags: American Design, Brand Identity, Brand Identity Reviews, Branding, Branding Blog, Branding Reviews, Design Blog, Design For Print, Design News, Design Opinion, Design Reviews, Designed by Pentagram, Graphic Design, Graphic Design Blog, Logo Design & Branding Blog, Logo Design Inspiration, Logo Design Resource, Logo Designs, Logo Opinion, Logotypes, Natasha Jen, Typography, Women of Design, Wordmark Design Comments Off on Kaiyo by PentagramOpinion by Richard Baird
Kaiyo, formerly Furnishare, is an online platform for the reselling and buying of used furniture, currently available in New York City and New Jersey, but with the intention to expand this internationally. Kaiyo picks up, inspects, cleans, photographs and uploads furniture to its online catalogue, easing the difficulties of selling secondhand online. It is part of a growing up-cycling movement, challenges the notion of seasonality promoted by large furniture retailers and was created in response to the approximately 8 million tons of furniture that ends up in American landfill each year. Eco-modernist, good design available to everyone, reuse and longevity are central to Kaiyo’s positioning. This was developed by Pentagram partner Natasha Jen and team, alongside naming and graphic identity which runs across website, brochure, van livery, tote bag and box tape.
StrangeLove Lo-Cal Soda by Marx Design
Posted: February 15, 2019 Filed under: Fonts in Use, Food and Drink, Graphic Design Reviews, Packaging Reviews | Tags: Best Awards Finalists, Best Packaging Designs, Botanical Illustration, Box Packaging, Branding & Packaging of 2019, Copywriting, Creative Packaging, Design For Print, Designed by Marx, Drinks Packaging, Fonts in Use: Calibre, From New Zealand, Guest Opinion, Handcraft, Illustration, Packaging Company, Packaging Design, Packaging Design Blog, Packaging Design Resource, Packaging News, Packaging Opinion, Soft Drink Packaging, The Very Best of 2019, The Very Best Packaging of 2019, Type Foundry: Klim Type Foundry Comments Off on StrangeLove Lo-Cal Soda by Marx DesignOpinion by Richard Baird & Seth Rowden
StrangeLove is an Australian soft drinks brand that began with a four flavour range of energy drinks. Although mass-produced, each of these was created with the intention of evoking a taste of the homemade through carefully sourced and high-quality organic ingredients. The range was developed in response to energy drink brands who StrangeLove believed had failed to live up to their premium positioning.
Keen to avoid the tricks and tropes of the category and secure a witty, eye-catching and original look, New Zealand-based Marx Design worked with StrangeLove to improve on the illustrative character that had been used across the brand’s earlier bottles, developing simpler compositions surrounded by plenty of white space and paired with sharp and humourous copywriting. Check out the BP&O review of these here.
StrangeLove went on to create a range of mixers, organic soft drinks and source a mineral water, each with its own unique visual language. 2019 sees the brand continue to expand their range and explore and challenge the drinks market, further working with Marx Design, this time on a range of “Lo-Cal” sodas.
