Francos de Montréal by LG2
Les Francos de Montréal is Canada’s premier festival of French language music and culture. Held annually in downtown Montréal, it is a fixture in both the social calendar and cultural life of the city, and the wider francophone world. This year’s edition of the festival has been given a sophisticated new look, courtesy of LG2, Canada’s largest independent creative agency...
Pilo by 5.5
Youth hostels aren’t exactly associated with luxury – nor great branding. For the most part, they’re deemed the cheap and cheerful option; a trip where home comforts are sacrificed for socially minded living, affordability, and a more adventurous sensibility than the average Travelodge. They’re the sorts of places where creaky bunk beds, shower queues, pillows so thin they’re barely more...
Plume by Human After All
Plume is a Denver-based telehealth service (or ‘virtual-clinic’) tailored specifically to the needs of the trans community across the US, offering a range of services including prescriptions for oestrogen or testosterone. This is a hostile political landscape to step into, but Plume is doing it with bright and bold panache, courtesy of a fresh rebrand from London-based studio Human After...
Hometree by How&How
It’s all well and good for a design agency to make some wild, boundary-pushing, all-singing all-dancing work for things like Gen Z healthcare products; or ‘top shelf’ spirits; or craft beer. But most client projects aren’t going to be the sort of thing that merits bright orange and typography that dances around the boundaries of legibility. And arguably, it’s those...
Wholesome by Universal Favourite
Wholesome is a new breed of supermarket that doesn’t fill a gap in a market so much as it positions itself at a nexus of multiple intersecting demands. The pursuit of ethical grocery and household shopping has, for decades, been both deeply commendable and exasperatingly time-consuming, expensive and convoluted. One supermarket will stock Fairtrade products but have a scant gluten-free...
Expensify by The Collected Works
According to The Collected Works, one of the main reasons its recent client Expensify was looking to rebrand was to remedy a perceived mismatch between the ‘wacky’ vibe of the brand’s marketing and ads (namely its 2019 Superbowl commercial), and its core visual identity. Which begs the question – how far does a brand identity itself have to mimic or...
Erbert by AUGE
Few countries on Earth take their food as seriously as Italy. It’s not difficult to justify the enormous pride Italians take in their spectacular culinary heritage, with their cuisine considered the ‘most exported’ on the planet. But while the wider world is undeniably in thrall, Italians’ patriotic palettes create and necessitate a notoriously conservative domestic cooking culture. Italian ingredients, recipes...
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...
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...
Fergus by Principal Studio
Organic food brands often land in the same visual territory as many vegan and eco-conscious counterparts – but when did the pursuit of consumer trust become so entwined with muted colour palettes, illustrated veg and rustic textures? There’s nothing inherently problematic with this combination of design elements, yet it has become a tired and overused formula for brands operating in...
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...
Vineyard Theatre by NB Studio
Much like identity work for art galleries and publishing houses, master brand design for theatre is often neutral, leaving plenty of space for a programme of diverse productions and eclectic marketing images to ‘take the stage’. When everything is in constant flux, there are typically some constants: a straightforward, recognisable wordmark, a distinctive typographic personality, and a consistently tight grid...