When Fazer foods, one of Finlands most respected confectionary icons, approached us to create a new plant-based food brand, we were thrilled. A lot of ingredients go into cooking up a brand as ambitious as this one, so we sunk our teeth into everything from the name and philosophy behind it to strategy and brand tenets, tone of voice, design language, identity system, comms, etc.
My Role: Creative Director & Project Lead
Our Mantra....
Fazer's goal was to Start a revolution in plant-based food by making healthier food choices easier for the many. We were heavily inspired by the quotes of Michael Pollon, who's approach to diet is dead simple and easy to digest.
All the elements came together to form our packaging and identity system, which lives across the the range of products. We introduced a modular labelling system to differentiate each product and ingredient, in addition to the pattern colours that further illustrate the shift. Unfortunately the project was killed at the Eleventh hour after months of hard work... But it would have looked like this ;)
What's in a name? A lot actually. While we wanted to retain the recognition of such a trusted, iconic and loved brand, we also wanted to distance from it a bit as the new brand is all about delicious plant based foods and drinks. After lots of writing and discussing, pages of lists, pages of lists with everything crossed out, and a few focus groups, we landed on VILD. A name that plays on the Finish & Swedish languages, but can also be universally understood as wild.
Again, in a move to tap into our heritage while looking to the future, we took a look at the brand's most recognisable landmark, the almost-decade-old Karl Fazer Café in downtown Helsinki, a protected historical landmark. That signage served the brand as distinctively and strongly in 1930 as it does today. So we remixed that classic logo into the word mark for Vild, celebrating the heritage of the brand with something that feels rooted in history but contemporary in it's own right.
After many explorations and territories we all agreed that to manifest and communicate the untamed goodness of Vild, we had to tap into the rich history of Finnish Pattern making. From iconic brands like Marrimeko that grace runways and dignitaries across the globe, to the explosion of contemporary Finnish illustrators and pattern makers, nobody does it quite like the Fins. We enlisted Kustaa Saksi to bring the brand to life, bringing vibrant energy to a stale supermarket aisle, and standing out in it's category.
Kustaa's illustrations jumped of the page, abstract enough to not be figurative, but hinting at the textures, shapes, colours and flavours of each product's ingredients. Each pattern in unique in colour and texture for each product, and fully loop-able in all directions
