New UNO packaging

What started as a design concept by Brazilian designer Walerson Oliveira has become a reality, as Mattel has made “UNO Minimialista” a physical thing you can now purchase.

After Oliveira’s concept created a buzz all over social media, Mattel took notice of the numerous callsfor the toymaker to produce the slick, minimal take on the classic card game, showing it off recently at the New York Toy Fair.The deck utilizes a black back along with a restyled UNO logo and multicolor bar along the bottom for the packaging, while the front of the cards features a solid color, depending on the move. Minimal type and icons adorn the center and corners of the cards, and the deck follows the same gameplay as the same old UNO you know and love because if it ain’t broke, you don’t need to fix it.

Dose & Co. poeder supplements

Protein & powders on-the-go has never looked so good thanks to Dose & Co. The cylinder packaging along with the color scheme of beiges deep blues speak to the natural ingredients in the powders. With Dose & Co. grabbing nutrition on your way out the door will become something you look forward to doing.

“In a world where everything’s getting rapidly more complex, it seems almost natural that there’s been a massive movement towards celebrating the simple and no-fuss. It’s not nostalgia – it’s just natural.”

 

Pentagram uplifting brand for mental health

Created by Paula Scher and her team, the identity focuses on a ‘square peg in a round hole’ icon that signifies there is no normal when it comes to mental health.

“Cole’s hope was that everyone sometimes has emotional issues and that everyone needs to be able to feel like it’s OK to feel that way and to talk about it and get help if they need it,” Scher explains. “I equated that feeling of not being emotionally stable to feeling like a square peg in a round hole. I wanted to create a symbol and system that could be universally recognised and take away the sanitarium aspect of mental health.”

The icon illustrates that there is no ‘normal’ when it comes to mental health and that everyone fits despite how it might feel. Set in the typeface Druk by Commercial Type, the chunky black letterforms are set against a rainbow of colours, which has been applied to business cards, stationery, the website and a set of posters which feature powerful phrases.

The Druk typeface is used again here to signal its connection to the Coalition. Likewise a bright but slightly more varied colour palette has been applied to represent the broad spectrum of mental health conditions, while also capturing a sense of optimism and hope.

For Scher, she felt it was her and her team’s responsibility to create an engaging but safe space. “I think the graphics have to be powerful and accessible, not timid or sedate, and allow people to feel like it’s OK to come into the site and participate,” she says.

These days will pass

The Your Space Or Mine project gives artists and creatives a platform on the street, and Titchner’s colourful, typographic piece, titled Please Believe These Days Will Pass, is a “rallying cry for hope” and a bid to boost morale. With many of us still only leaving the house for essential food shops and daily exercise, the piece aims to be a welcome break from the “monotony of our current situation”.

“When the words ‘Please Believe These Days Will Pass’ first came to me in 2012 who could imagine the ‘days’ that we find ourselves in now? My thinking at the time was a message to help one endure through difficult times, but also a reminder to cherish what is good in the here and now,” explains Titchner. “It’s what is good, such as the bravery of those working so hard on our behalf in the NHS or the safety of our loved ones, that will get us through when the endurance runs low. I’m very thankful of the opportunity to share these words again in sites across the UK and hope as we all do these days will pass before too long.”

Ashmolean’s rebrand

As part of a strategy overhaul, the museum enlisted design studio Blast to create a new identity that would help to improve brand awareness and ultimately expand the museum’s reach – in terms of both the size and diversity of its audience.

First and foremost was the logo redesign, which is now represented by a crisp, geometric serif A complete with an extended crossbar, “inspired by the concept of a timeline”. The new logo is designed to create a “bold, recognisable symbol for the Ashmolean, a distinctive shorthand mark, recognisable at small sizes and from distance,” Tunnicliffe says.

“The logo is designed to form the cornerstone for typographiclayouts, signposting information, dates, events, art or artefacts,” he adds. The new logo was formed with flexibility in mind, giving freedom to adopt a range of layouts and, crucially, hitting the right notes across digital touchpoints – whether the Ashmolean’s online platforms or the information screens within the museum. Blast also developed a new tagline for the institution: ‘Inspiring minds, since 1683’.Beyond the logo, the aspect of the overhaul that arguably jumps out most is the colour palette, which now welcomes flashes of colour akin to those seen in Pop Art. “We wanted a vibrant palette to keep communication fresh and engaging,” Tunnicliffe says. But it wasn’t a case of throwing away the history books altogether; hidden amongst the grabby colours are subtle allusions to the Ashmolean’s rich heritage. “The brand colour palette is inspired by the vibrant colours of the museum’s galleries, paired with the more subtle colours of the exterior stonework.”

Noosh

Noosh is bringing the slow food movement into a fast food context with its delicious flatbreads and Mediterranean cuisine. While designing their brand, our founder happened to be participating in the prestigious Type Paris program, and was in the process of creating the font, Mademoiselle Didot. The luscious curvature of the font was a perfect match for Noosh – the word itself means ‘lovely, attractive’ in Farsi, and the ‘O’s mimic the movement of your mouth while saying its name. The final identity is elegantly simple and lays a beautiful foundation as this exceptional restaurant scales. If you’re in San Francisco, come experience Noosh for yourself!

Find more here.

Qula colourful brand

QULA is a brand of kombucha tablets that contains live probiotics and hydration-boosting minerals that dissolve in regular water. Unlike most kombucha on the market, QULA is not pre-bottled, reducing its environmental footprint both in the reduction of packaging per serving as well as the reduction of distribution-related greenhouse gas emissions and fuel consumption. Available in four flavors, QULA is a fizzy, slightly funky, soda alternative that is healthier and contains less than 1 gram of sugar per serving.The packaging is dominated by one of four vibrant illustrations that range from namaste to funkadelic, with each flavor sporting its own design and every illustration with a color palette inspired by the kombucha flavor. Orange Mamba, QULA’s blood orange and rosemary flavor, features orange, red, yellow, and green against a sky blue background. Pink Sunshine, a raspberry cucumber flavor, makes use of purple, blue, pink, and green and gives off some very serious psychedelic vibes. Upriser, a mango pineapple mix, features green, yellow, and red. Finally, Queen of Cups, their guava rose variant, is dominated by purple and pink, with orange, yellow, and green in supporting roles. Other visual assets on the packaging are similarly tied to the kombucha flavors.

That’s rubbish!

The eyewear brand collaborated with studio Plasticiet to transform its new Antwerp store into a terrazzo-inspired “recycling temple”, using waste collected from the local area.

Ace & Tate is known for its imaginative approach to the retail experience: its slickly designed stores are a far cry from your average high street optician, while it’s been behind creative campaigns such as launching a zine to celebrate its first Bristol store with local mag Crack.

The retailer decided to collaborate with Plasticiet again for its new store in Antwerp, which features an entirely recycled interior made from rubbish collected from the local area. The Amsterdam-based company has made its name creating recycled sheets that nod to the aesthetic of more traditional natural stone materials such as marble and terrazzo.

Burger King quarantine whooper

Yet Burger King France has given it a go with its Le Whopper de la Quarantaine poster campaign, aka the Quarantine Whopper, which shows a poster of neatly organised, shop-bought ingredients that fans can use to imitate BK’s Whopper at home. While it doesn’t reveal how to cook and put all of these ingredients together, the image-focused ad is a nod of solidarity to the country, which has been under lockdown since March 17.

Created by Paris ad agency Buzzman, the ad was tweeted out on Burger King France’s official channeland received a wave of support and recreations with nearly 4,000 retweets and over 17,000 likes at the time of writing. As part of the campaign, Buzzman has also created similar iterations for its Le Steakhouse, Le Big Fish, and Le Big King burgers.

Flatten the Curve

Life has been turned upside down by the coronavirus outbreak even for those who haven’t suffered a loss at the hands of it. The news has become an ongoing source of despair and the general public is rapidly tiring of life under lockdown. However, the crisis has seen a pushback of positivity, whether through the nationwide Clap for our Carers initiative or the sense of solidarity seen across the creative communities and the wider public.

Flatten The Curve is a new compilation video embracing the positive, with animators from around the world contributing over 90 uplifting clips based on their time under lockdown. The first film in the series has just been released, with two more to follow.

The project was initiated by London-based animators Kathrin Steinbacher and Emily Downe, who together run Studio Desk. Steinbacher and Downe asked animators to submit a clip that would “highlight something positive they have experienced in these difficult times”, and the outcome is a diverse array of colourful takes on the new normal.