innocent drinks has rolled out a simplified new visual identity by Derek&Eric.
The company, which launched in 1999 and was bought by Coca-Cola in 2013, felt its branding had become fragmented across its range, which includes smoothies, juices, wellness shots and coconut water.
innocent ran a pitching process a couple of years ago for the project, and chose “one of the big-name agencies,” which it declined to name.
But after a few months, the brand decided to pause that partnership because they felt “it wasn’t really working,” according to innocent creative lead, Finlay Hogg. They approached strategist Silas Amos to take on the work – whom Hogg describes as having “a unique ability to speak marketing and design” – and Amos bought in Derek&Eric to work on the designs.
The challenge, Hogg says, was to simplify a brand architecture and design approach that had become complicated and confused over time.
“Over the years we’ve launched loads of new recipes,” he says. “We tried to do everything the right way, but we could have paid a bit more attention to how everything worked together. Everything followed a different design system, and we lost the look of a market leader.”
This made it difficult, he explains, for both existing and new customers to “navigate” the range of innocent’s offerings. And Alex Stewart, creative partner at Derek&Eric says this diminished the so-called halo effect, “one drink leading to another, and that overall brand impact.”
Stewart says the aim of the new work was to “simplify and rationalise” the design system across the different products. The challenge then was to ensure every design decision reflected this key strategic aim.
“We were holding ourselves up to that at every single stage of the process,” he says. “There were times where we were going, ‘Oh, but for this range, maybe we do need to be a bit different.’ And every time we had to look at ourselves and say no, we’re going to keep strong to our principles.”
The new innocent drinks branding, by Derek&Eric and Silas Amos
This fed into what Stewart calls “a responsible brand refresh.”
“This brand has a strong history, and it’s loved,” he explains. “It didn’t need any whizzbang – it just needed to be uplifted. So how could we pull every element back to be as simple, clean, clear, and beautifully crafted as possible? We wanted the minimum possible number of elements to tell the maximum possible story.”
At the heart of Amos’ strategy was ”the dude” – the internal name for the innocent logo. The new designs place the logo front and centre, “to really let him sing,” as Stewart puts it.
“Looking back at the logo, I think it was a bit broken,” Hogg explains. “The softness was missing and the craft just wasn’t there – it didn’t feel locked up.”
Stewart agrees. “It was a product of its time – it felt like it was drawn in 1999. Which is no shade on the original designers, but it launched on one or two products. Over time, as you add more levels and brand architecture, and communication, the logo got smaller and smaller.”
The fact it was created as an italic also caused problems. “If you put something above it, it looked wonky. If you put something below it, it looked offset.”
The new innocent drinks logo, by Derek&Eric and Silas Amos
The team worked with typographer Rob Clarke and illustrator Laura Silveria to refine the core visual assets, including the logo and a new arched wordmark. Clarke worked on “hundreds of iterations” to find a look that worked for everyone.
“Those handcrafted elements made it more expressive without changing its core essence,” Hogg says. “It brought that confidence back. We described it like a piece of fruit sitting in a fruit bowl – it needed that plumpness that makes you want to pick it.”
Clarke also worked on a new hand-drawn typeface, innocent hand, and tweaked the custom typeface he had previously created for the brand, innocent sans.
The new innocent hand typeface, designed by Rob Clarke
“It was all hand-painted, scanned and crafted,” Hogg says. “We focused on every single element, because there were going to be minimal assets on every pack.”
For the colour palette, Stewart and his team delved into the archives to revive some “greatest hits” from the products’ past, and they were drawn in particular to warmer light-coloured pastels which had been replaced by a colder white in recent years.
One of the biggest challenges, Stewart says, was to create the right design system for the back of pack, which had to balance nutrition and ingredients information with the storytelling and lively copy that innocent is renowned for.
He says the team spent days trying to figure out a solution, until one designer suggested using a simple horizontal line to divide the different types of copy.
“Across the project, the hardest thing was finding the simplest solution in every given scenario,” Stewart laughs.
And the simplicity of that approach helped Hogg and his team roll out the changes, across international markets, with different suppliers.
“There was a lot of complexity,” Hogg explains. “We have a lot of different print partners, with different cutters, and different production methods. And we had to make sure the labels all look the same.” The flexibility of the new design system was useful when labels needed to be redone, as legislation changed in different countries, for example.
He says the innocent team “couldn’t be happier” with the new identity, and that it’s made internal work much clearer, given the parameters they are now being asked to work to.
And on a recent trip to Germany, Stewart was thrilled to see the new-look bottles on the shelves.
“It was brilliant to see it functioning in a different market, in a different language, and surrounded by other brands that we don’t have in the UK,” he says. “I was proud that it was still so prominent.”
The new innocent drinks branding, by Derek&Eric and Silas Amos
The redrawn innocent sans typeface
The new innocent drinks branding, by Derek&Eric and Silas Amos