Barnardo’s by The Clearing

Barnardo’s is the UK’s largest children’s charity, and it undoubtedly does much good in the world. However, its history up to this point is also littered with uncomfortable controversies. Certainly, the most outlandish transgressions are concentrated in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Founder Thomas John Barnardo was taken to court 88 times for kidnapping children (or ‘philanthropic abductions’, as old...

Qasa by Bold

Now that the likes of ed-tech (education technology) and fin-tech (financial technology) have become a natural part of everyday parlance, it was surely only a matter of time before prop-tech (property technology) entered the equation, too. Proptech largely refers to platforms and services that use tech to help people buy, sell, research, market, and manage a property – ranging from...

Antara 128 by Mucho

GT Alpina is described by type foundry and BP&O regular GrilliType as a workhorse serif that also delights in playing with the very meaning of concept, reaching into the ‘grab bag of typographic history to resurrect shapes some may falsely see as too expressive’. This feels an apt description for Antara 128, and the visual identity created by Mucho that...

Crumbl by Turner Duckworth

While we speak the same language, the cultural differences between us here in the UK and our pals in the US can feel vast. There’s pavement vs sidewalk, fringe vs bangs, ‘flavour’ vs ‘flavor’. There’s also biscuit and cookie – though where we draw the line between the two is another debate for another time. And seemingly at the forefront...

De-Extinction by Koto

Koto’s new work is undoubtedly gorgeous – after all, what’s not to love about a suite of very cute dinosaurs? Especially when they’re rendered in a charming faux naif sort of style, and the whole colour palette is based around Barney & Friends purpley pink and the effervescently Gen Z-baiting neon of ‘terminal green’. The project in question is Koto’s...

Thick Pickle by Studyhall

Where to begin with Thick Pickle? This conceptual brand began in 2023 as a self-initiated ‘studio side project’ for California-based studio Studyhall. As it blew up though, Studyhall began to wonder if the brand had legs – literally, as demonstrated by the disconcertingly buff, aviator-shade-sporting animated pickle (gherkin or pickled cucumber for the Brits) mascot who strides across pop-up windows...

PAIST by Two Times Elliott

Toothpaste hasn’t historically needed to do a lot, design-wise: it’s a category based on functionality and efficacy, over trends and aesthetics – sensitive teeth, whitening processes, goth-adjacent charcoal formulas, weird little crystals, and so on and so forth. That function over form thing has meant that over the years, toothpaste packaging has become incredibly monotonous – usually a predominantly white,...

Quality Experience (QX) by &Walsh

Even the most fleeting scan through &Walsh’s portfolio makes it wholly unsurprising how Jessica Walsh’s semi-eponymous studio has achieved such a brilliant reputation. While Walsh herself has garnered countless design press column inches – as partner at Sagmeister & Walsh; one half of the 40 Days of Dating project; a creative conference regular; and an advocate for women in design...

Moksi by FCKLCK Studio

Dutch studio FCKLCK’s all-caps, blood-red website is full of declarations of belligerent provocations such as ‘OUR FAVOURITE CLIENTS ARE THE ONES WHO HAVE EVEN BIGGER BALLS THAN WE DO’. Talk of ‘CUTTING THROUGH THE BULLSHIT’ is accompanied by a mouseover gif of a defecating bovine. The name is of course an expletive repudiation of serendipity (who needs luck when you’ve...

BP&O Voices

Rich Baird on Design History: Mazda by Rei Yoshimura & PAOS, 1975

The story of Rei Yoshimura & PAOS 1975 logo for Mazda....

PURLOM’s ¡A LA MESA! by Onmi Design

I’m reluctant to bring up the pandemic again, four years later. But I can’t help think back to that period when seeing images related to gatherings, which are employed to great effect in Onmi Design’s work for PURLOM, a family business with more than 40 years of experience producing and distributing a wide variety of meats. This kind of imagery...

Gustini by Koto

Like many a geriatric millennial, a lot of my childhood was joyfully spent in front of the telly absorbing cultural pillars like Zig and Zag, Stoppit and Tidyup, and, of course, Wales’ finest export after Charlotte Church, Fireman Sam. Alongside the titular Sam, the show starred icons including ‘Naughty’ Norman Price (fun fact – my dad once mended the boiler...

Ventura Foreman by Studio Blackburn

Founded by Robert Ventura and Sophie Foreman, Ventura Foreman is a design and manufacturing studio based in Woolwich, south London, which specialises in quality workwear pieces for clients like Paul Smith, Matches, and much-hyped North London ‘liberal metropolitan elite’ take on the greasy spoon, Norman’s Cafe. Having been around for a while without a ‘brand’, there came a point in...

Blue Mountains by For The People

The Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia are not technically mountains at all. They are, rather, a complex labyrinth of dissected plateaus, gorges and valleys of sandstone, formed over 50 million years ago. So far, so deceptive. Fortunately, however, the Blue Mountains are most definitely blue. When the atmospheric temperature of the region rises, a superfine mist of fragrant...

TWYG by Seachange

At some point over the past half decade or so, someone somewhere decided that vowels were profoundly uncool: see Anthropologie’s wedding line BHLDN; “virtual sneaker” brand [what?!] and Nike acquisition RTFK; Blndr (yes, it’s a blender) and the likes of Tumblr, Pixlr, and Flickr, which dared to sneak in just the one. Reading such words feels a bit like learning...

BP&O Voices

Rich Baird on Design History: Spar by Raymond Loewy, 1970

The story of Raymond Loewy’s 1970 logo for Spar....

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...

Knahia by Requena Office

Estepona is a Spanish resort town on the Costa del Sol. It surveys the azure waves of the Mediterranean from the apex of a bight that traces a gentle South-Westerly arc from Marbella to Gibraltar. Strewn as it is on this notoriously idyllic coastline, Estepona largely conforms to the stereotypically cheerful charm of the Spanish resort town, pandering to the...

Ami Ami by Wedge

We’ve all, at some point in life, encountered a few “But Actuallys”: the kind of people who always know a little bit more than you, constantly correct you, diligently fact check in social situations. They’re perennially just that smidgen More Right than you: a heady combination of The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy; the classic pedant (or pendant if you want...

Be Equitable by For The People

There are many kinds of rebrand. There are rebrands that tread lightly, reverently refining and polishing what is already there, like archaeologists delicately exhuming sunken lucre so that it can once again gleam (National Portrait Gallery). Then there are rebrands that are a little more decisive in their handling of the raw materials—imagine our similetic Time Team creatively re-assembling the...

Mr Yum by Re Design

Sometimes a project comes along that doesn’t just make you think about how nice its typography is, or ponder if millennial pink is making a comeback (or indeed,, if it ever went away), or why suddenly a branded bucket hat seems to be a key facet of any company/product/concept’s ‘swag’. Sometimes, it makes you think about what ‘branding’ even means,...

Pirkkalan by Werklig

It’s been years since millennials were first accused of buying too many avocado toasts and expensive coffees. The stereotype of young people loving handmade, refined and artisanal products holds true in their spending patterns, and today, that generation has matured into business leaders, reshaping the world’s mindset to align with these priorities. As consumers, Gen Z seem to be picking...

Chilli Bomba by New Genre

Based in what’s been optimistically named London’s ‘Design District’, New Genre is a pretty youthful studio that’s racked up an impressively broad range of projects and clients in its short life. Just shy of two years old, the studio has thus far worked across fintech, a non-profit art organisation, a pub, a beauty brand, and a campaign for Jamie Oliver...

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...