Unilever: 2012 A New Identity
Bruce Mau Design
Corporate Branding
In 2011 Bruce Mau Design pitched and won the rebranding of Unilever; one of the worlds largest multinational consumer goods company. Unilever owns over 400 brands, such as Axe, Dove, Hellmann's, Knorr, Lipton, Ben & Jerry's and many more brands likely found in your household.
I was brought on to the project in 2011 by Paddy Harrington, Executive Creative Director of Bruce Mau Design. A small team of us crammed into the library of BMD and carried out one of the largest projects of my career.
Unilever's new purpose is to make sustainable living commonplace. It will be many years before any corporation can become 100% sustainable in their sourcing, packaging & supply chain; but after loads of research and development of the brand I can truly say Unilever is making major strides in corporate sustainability. Unilever's bold purpose needed a visual identity to tell their story and encourage others to take small actions everyday that lead to a big difference.
Originally designed by Wolff Ollins in 2004, the Unilever logo is made up of 25 different icons representing sub brands or corporate values. We pulled each icon from the logo and added a deeper meaning and a story. The brand now uses the icons to tell sustainable living stories and as a design element on their own.
We added a wildly diverse colour palette based around the Unilever Blue. We wanted a colour palette with endless possibilities to bring ideas to life.
We changed the official typeface to Din Pro and relicensed a version of the font as Unilever Din. We also designed a new fun informal typeface, Unilever illustrative type, to balance out the rigidness of Din.
The Voronoi pattern helps to bring the Unilever brand to life. The voronoi pattern is a naturally occurring pattern you can find on everything from the leaves of a tree to the wings of a dragonfly. Its a flexible design tool that helps organize space and house other elements from the system such as photography, text or icons.
We changed the brand's use of photography. From now on, the photos will feature real people with real stories. Photography associated with the brand should now feel honest and most importantly authentic.
A year and a half later we're just starting to see the work come to life. Agencies around the world are starting to roll out work based on the brand guidelines we wrote. Our work on the Unilever brand paved the way for the Environments team at Bruce Mau Design to turn our identity into a physical reality. Unilever environments and offices everywhere from Singapore to Brazil are majorly overhauling their spaces to fit into the visual identity.
Rarely do you get the chance to say your design work made a difference, but corporations these days hold so much power that I can confidently say my work with Unilever will change the world. Small actions leading up to a big difference.
There are so many people who worked on this brand for the past year and a half. It would be tough to credit everyone, so again, thanks to everyone at Bruce Mau Design for pulling together as a team to tackle this major project.
Bruce Mau Design
Corporate Branding
In 2011 Bruce Mau Design pitched and won the rebranding of Unilever; one of the worlds largest multinational consumer goods company. Unilever owns over 400 brands, such as Axe, Dove, Hellmann's, Knorr, Lipton, Ben & Jerry's and many more brands likely found in your household.
I was brought on to the project in 2011 by Paddy Harrington, Executive Creative Director of Bruce Mau Design. A small team of us crammed into the library of BMD and carried out one of the largest projects of my career.
Unilever's new purpose is to make sustainable living commonplace. It will be many years before any corporation can become 100% sustainable in their sourcing, packaging & supply chain; but after loads of research and development of the brand I can truly say Unilever is making major strides in corporate sustainability. Unilever's bold purpose needed a visual identity to tell their story and encourage others to take small actions everyday that lead to a big difference.
Originally designed by Wolff Ollins in 2004, the Unilever logo is made up of 25 different icons representing sub brands or corporate values. We pulled each icon from the logo and added a deeper meaning and a story. The brand now uses the icons to tell sustainable living stories and as a design element on their own.
We added a wildly diverse colour palette based around the Unilever Blue. We wanted a colour palette with endless possibilities to bring ideas to life.
We changed the official typeface to Din Pro and relicensed a version of the font as Unilever Din. We also designed a new fun informal typeface, Unilever illustrative type, to balance out the rigidness of Din.
The Voronoi pattern helps to bring the Unilever brand to life. The voronoi pattern is a naturally occurring pattern you can find on everything from the leaves of a tree to the wings of a dragonfly. Its a flexible design tool that helps organize space and house other elements from the system such as photography, text or icons.
We changed the brand's use of photography. From now on, the photos will feature real people with real stories. Photography associated with the brand should now feel honest and most importantly authentic.
A year and a half later we're just starting to see the work come to life. Agencies around the world are starting to roll out work based on the brand guidelines we wrote. Our work on the Unilever brand paved the way for the Environments team at Bruce Mau Design to turn our identity into a physical reality. Unilever environments and offices everywhere from Singapore to Brazil are majorly overhauling their spaces to fit into the visual identity.
Rarely do you get the chance to say your design work made a difference, but corporations these days hold so much power that I can confidently say my work with Unilever will change the world. Small actions leading up to a big difference.
There are so many people who worked on this brand for the past year and a half. It would be tough to credit everyone, so again, thanks to everyone at Bruce Mau Design for pulling together as a team to tackle this major project.
