Totemic
This week, work by Seachange and Bedow
Totemic
Reviewed by Emily Gosling
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 shorthand again, but no one does that anymore; or saving as much space as possible in a txt msg to avoid forking out another 10p. But again, no one does that anymore.
Last year saw the launch of ‘TWYG’ – a resolutely all-caps, vowel-free luxury skincare brand that hails from New Zealand as is, of course, pronounced ‘twig’. It’s a rather sweet name really, but perhaps one that doesn’t scream ‘luxury’; or at least, that is, until you see the superb branding and packaging created by fellow New Zealander Seachange, an ever-impressive brand and design agency based in Auckland…
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Frank Penny
Bedow
Frank Penny refers to the common consultancy names ‘Surname & Surname’ and can at the same time be interpreted as ‘honest money’. From this, Bedow devised a new brand narrative ‘Transparent Transactions’ for the Swedish consulting firm that specialises in helping clients solve anti-money laundering (AML) problems. It’s a fantastic set-up for a logo. Transparency and money, and finding the perfect ‘intersection’. The interplay of lines and ovals creates a speculator visual articulation of this, with a neat little hypnotic animation driving the effect home.
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Now on Brand Archive:
Nederlandse Spoorwegen, 1968
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