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Rebrand Roundup: Artisanal Ice Cream, Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence and other stories

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Aardman – Las Iguanas

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Aardman, the Bristol-based animation studio best known for the Wallace and Gromit films, has rebranded the kid’s menu at Latin American restaurant chain Las Iguanas. Aardman, who are renowned for developing lovable characters and enduring brands, were delighted to partner with Las Iguanas on designing a menu that would capture the attention of their younger guests whilst also proving a hit with their parents. Las Iguanas approached Aardman with a brief to create a new set of characters with the charm and personality the studio are so well known for, and director Tim Ruffle came up with the hybrid designs that incorporate classic Aardman features into stylised, graphic characters. The character of “Iggy” the Iguana has been created to help guide kids and their parents through the menu, while also offering kids a chance to engage in fun activities including colouring in, word puzzles, mazes and even getting to grips with some basic Spanish. As well as being fun and attention grabbing, this colourful and captivating new kids’ menu contains all the information parents need on the child friendly food available at Las Iguanas. As part of the promotional activity around the launch of the new menu, Las Iguanas will also be running an exciting competition throughout the Easter holidays to give youngsters the chance to name Iggy’s friends! An animated version of the kid’s menu has also been created to accompany the menu launch.

 

Pentagram (Natasha Jen) – Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream

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Pentagram partner Natasha Jen has designed new branding and packaging for the Brooklyn-based ice cream brand Van Leeuwen Artisan. The new look is made up of an italic logotype and a series of minimal, block colours to represent different flavours, with the minimal graphics used to stand out in store and look good on social media. The clean, clear branding also hopes to clear up the visual clutter of the previous branding, and make the whole range more cohesive. The old branding may have been a visual overload, but it was also in line with the identities of most other ice cream companies. Jen and her team took Van Leeuwen in the complete opposite direction. They stuck with the familiar script for the wordmark, but stripped the packaging of the illustrations. Starting with the trademark buttercup yellow of the truck, they developed a pastel colour palette where each flavour ice cream is assigned one colour. The vegan line shows the inverse, with each pint given a white background with coloured script and accents. The rebrand makes the pints eye-catching on their own, while still existing as a part of a unified system. The approach seems to be working, as since the introduction of the new packaging late last year, retail sales have increased 50%, proving that the old adage “less is more” still rings true.

 

Fieldwork Facility – Low Carbon Hub

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Consultancy Fieldwork Facility has designed a new visual identity and campaign for Oxford-based renewable energy organisation Low Carbon Hub, which works with local people in schools and businesses to create renewable energy projects that aim to help the wider Oxfordshire community. The design studio has kept the existing logo, but has created a new powerful and slightly tongue-in-cheek tone of voice for the organisation. It uses Low Carbon Hub’s signature bright green colour across a series of striking advertising posters featuring large, white typography conveying messages such as “Power stations for public good” and “Community energy powers megawatt smiles.” Hoardings made of light have also been scattered around Oxfordshire, conveying more of the organisation’s key messages. The messaging is given more precedence than the Low Carbon Hub logo, and the big, bold typography carries through to business cards, event banners, brand guidelines and other print publications.

 

DewGibbons + Partners – Hello Day

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This month sees the UK launch of Hello Day, a unique range of healthcare and wellbeing supplements available as a seasonal box, supported by a lifestyle app, and with name, brand identity, and packaging design by DewGibbons + Partners. The very first Spring Box is now available in the UK, with plans to expand to France, Spain, and Italy. It contains four food supplements formulated to help balance vitality, reduce fatigue, activate circulation, and aid digestion. Each seasonal box contains supplements designed specifically to help people prepare for and meet the challenges and changes each season brings for mind, body, and soul. This is what inspired Hello Day’s approach to healthcare and it’s visual and verbal language. DewGibbons + Partners worked on the brand positioning and designed a future-proofed visual and verbal language to easily communicate the brand and product benefits to the core customer base of 30-50 year old urban dwelling women across all communication and media touch points. The design captures the brand idea that Hello Day helps people “roll through the seasons,” and dials nature and science cues up and down depending on the communication. Hello Day’s website and free app accompany customers in the process of feeling, looking and flowing better with step-by-step programmes for each product, seasonal advice, assessment cards, controlling product intake, ordering again, and much more. DewGibbons + Partners devised Hello Day’s website and app templates based around the visual and verbal identity, then worked closely with Make It Rain who built the website, and Interaction Healthcare who created the app.

 

AfterHours – Sweet Freedom

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AfterHours has redesigned the visual identity and packaging of Sweet Freedom, a range of fruit syrups and sweet foods that are suitable for diabetics. The creative concept is built around the insight that these products are a “dream come true” for those watching their sugar intake who therefore feel that many of the sweet treats they crave are forbidden. To echo this sentiment, a “charming, woodland creature” was designed to represent each product in the range, with each animal chosen to reflect the colours of the product and embody the “always sweet, always natural” spirit and values of the product and the brand. The natural, white highlight of each animal’s belly creates the central canvas for the branding and messaging whilst the colour palette of the outer edges of the labels is designed to blend naturally with each product making the labels appear to blend seamlessly into the bottles themselves. This allows the animal to come to life across the entire surface of the bottle, creating a three dimensional impression on shelf. Product shots include various natural habitats, while the logo is comprised of a simple, foil-effect serif typeface.

 

The Partners – METI

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The Partners has branded a new organisation, Messaging Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, which is dedicated to trying to contact alien life. The METI brand needed to explain what the organisation does, raise awareness of its work and encourage potential audiences to take an interest. One part of the brief became a positioning statement for the project; “In one word, messaging.” This led to a brand concept being created around code systems and the origins of language. Inspiration was taken from the Arecibo message, a 1974 interstellar radio communication broadcast into space. It used binary code to represent scientific and mathematical data as well as pictograms about life on Earth. Binary code is a coding system using a 0 or 1 to represent a letter or character in computing and telecommunication. The Partners also considered how “Hello, world!” are the first words written when someone is learning a new programming language. This brought the consultancy to a unique phrase for METI, “Hello, universe,” which is used across the brand. The METI visual identity follows the same course of inspiration. The Partners has introduced emotive imagery and a philosophical tone of voice to connect human experiences of discovery. The Roman alphabet has been converted to binary code and can be deciphered. The METI logo is formed on a square grid and uses binary patterns. The design can be read as METI but also appears abstract in a bid to reflect the nature of the organisation’s work. Other applications include posters where perforated squares can be popped out to create binary messages and postcards which encourage users to create their own forms of communication, to emphasise the role of human interaction in METI’s work.

 

DesignLSM – Hawkers Bar & Brasserie

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DesignLSM has designed the branding for new London-based bar and restaurant Hawkers Bar & Brasserie. Hawkers references the aviation history of the bar’s location in Kingston, and is named after flight pioneer Harry Hawker. Kingston upon Thames is known for its aircraft factory founded in 1912, while Kingston University is now host to specialist aviation courses. The visual identity draws inspiration from aircraft photography and the logo alludes to the roundel used on 19th century military aircrafts. The branding rolls out across signage, menu, stationery and other print materials such as gold-foiled gift cards.

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