Everyone loves a big brand-name food company getting a brand & design facelift. At Opus one of our focus areas is food & beverage, so we love to see it! We also know the power of having a consistent and clear brand, check out our branding services to learn more.This past Spring, one of our designers attended the HOW Design Live Conference in Boston this year and reported back to the team on several rebranding presentations. Here are the three rebranding highlights from the conference:
M&M’s
Celebrating the “&” in M&M’s
The bright colors and candy characters have always been so easily recognized as M&M. But M&M felt their overall brand didn’t relay the mission of their company anymore. So they hired JKR Global to develop an updated flexible visual identity to embrace the companies mission to create a world where everyone feels they belong. To do this they embraced the “&” in the logo and used it to inspire the new look.
Old Branding:
- The old branding wasn’t communicating very much and didn’t match their updated mission.
- The brand had a lot of inconsistencies, from packaging to store fronts, they weren’t quite matching up visually.
- They were also in need of an update on the characters to be a bit more reflective of today’s world.
New Branding:
- They realized the “&” was already in the center of their logo, so they embraced what they already had and ran with it.
- The angle was removed from the logo.
- A custom font was created, that embraces fun & has more personality. It also conveys a bit of nostalgia with the blocky serif flourishes and is reminiscent of the candy’s round shape.
- The characters got an upgrade to focus more on their personalities.
- Updated Candy “M” to match M on logo cus they were for some reason different.
- They are still in the process of updating the packaging, so we should see new packaging on shelves very soon!
Oscar Mayer
Crafting a world beyond wieners
Oscar Mayer is a packaged deli meat company that’s been around since 1883 and sells its products in grocery stores all over the country. Oscar Mayer also realized it was time to refresh its current design and brand. They hired Brand Opus, who worked with them to bring fresh life to this established brand in the food industry. The refreshed brand is rooted in the creative idea “never square” and embraces the brand's playful nature.
Old Branding:
- The logo was a bit dated and felt racetrack-like, and they really didn’t want to convey the idea of being a fast food company.
- None of the packagings of the food items felt cohesive or like it was from the same company.
New Branding:
- Oscar Mayer is most well known for its hot dogs. So they thought about the occasions when people eat hot dogs, which are always fun and laid back. They realized they wanted the brand to feel just as fun as those occasions are.
- The logo got a facelift: They added a bit more personality with a rounded font and embraced the “romboid” shape that already existed in the brand. This shape perfectly relates to their new identity of “never square”.
- They also had a custom font created for them; A rounded sans serif that has a lot of personality.
- They also took on the challenge of re-designing all of the packaging to look like one cohesive brand.
- Lastly, they added a new library of fun illustrations and created a new website to showcase the new brand.
Oikos
Reinventing Oikos to Breakthrough the Boredom
Oikos is a yogurt that’s been produced by Danone for many years. With the fairly recent boom of exciting and colorful new yogurt packaging in grocery stores, Oikos’s classic and simple look was getting lost. Danone knew it was time for a change to the Oikos brand. The design team at Danone worked collaboratively with the designers at Beardwood&Co to reinvent Oikos yogurt. Oikos yogurt was given a new look to stand up to the competition.
Old Branding:
- When you first think of Oikos, the first thing that pops into your mind might be John Stamos... and the second thing is probably an overall Greek aesthetic, which was pretty on the nose for a Greek yogurt brand.
- It just wasn’t memorable enough and no longer stood out in the wave of other yogurts in the dairy aisle of the grocery store.
New Branding:
- They realized it was time to change everything: the brand and the yogurt itself.
- They also needed a bolder look and their goal was to “boldly break through the boredom”.
- The new brand is now much more high contrast and a little in your face. They did this with giant imagery of fruit, a black and white color scheme, and lots of overlapping elements.
- They also had a custom font created; An almost handwritten-looking font that they pair with an edgier sans serif font.
Takeaways
One big takeaway from these three projects is that we’re seeing a big trend toward custom fonts. A lot of larger companies have been investing in custom fonts, and these custom fonts can be another great vessel for creating a new and custom brand.As a design agency, we love to see these projects and admire how much work must have gone into each one. At Opus, we’ve worked on several food & beverage company rebrands and would love to help you with yours! Contact Us to learn more about our branding services.
