Dis-tinction
Reviewed by Emily Gosling
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 work for De-Extinction, which started out around two years ago and supplies plastic-free tableware, cutlery, and food packaging to a roster mostly consisting of restaurants and grocery stores (we’re not sure exactly which ones, however, since at the time of writing the website is down). According to the company’s spiel, its raison d’etre is to help brands ‘move toward a more sustainable future in a way that’s good for businesses, and the planet’…
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Antara 128
Mucho
Antara 128 is an avant-garde bakery and restaurant that fuses European traditions with a contemporary Australian influence and sits within a space designed by renowned architect Kerstin Thompson. Inspired by the lamination process of folding and rolling dough to create richly layered baked goods. design studio Mucho developed an iconic ‘A’ logo for the restaurant. Patience and persistence infused into a dynamic logo that expands and contracts like dough across various printed items gives a simple form a memorable quality.
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Respecc the thiccness
Reviewed by Thomas Barnett
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 at thickpickle.com. Studyhall now describes the project as ‘essentially a pre-kickstarter effort’. The studio claims to have had ‘countless meetings with food scientists, Michelin chefs, expert picklers’, and attests that the website is ‘a testing ground to validate the collective need for huge, juicy big boys’.
It’s difficult to know how seriously to take these statements – where do you apply for the job of ‘expert pickler’? The write-up has whispers of a particularly committed April-Fools bit, a suspicion strengthened by studio founder Matt Yerman’s description of Thick Pickle as ‘something provocative… something youthful and useful’. Provocative? OK. Youthful? Fine. Useful..?
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Now on Brand Archive:
Esprit, 1978
Brand Archive is a new research tool from the team behind BP&O. Discover a long history of corporate identity design, from the 1960s to present day. Using our custom built filter, discover individual assets from signage, to packaging to liveries, drawn from over 700 brands.
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Thank you for subscribing to the BP&O Newsletter. If you’re interested in other design-related resources and tools, also check out these from the same team:
Brand Basics – Automated Brand Guidelines maker.
Brand Archive – Research tool for brand designers.
LogoArchive Website – Searchable modernist logo archive & research tool.
Logo Histories – Stories behind great historical logos.
LogoArchive Shop – Vintage design books & LogoArchive Zines.
Those dinos are THE CUTEST!