Sunbasket branding
The redesign of the branding for Sunbasket, a home meal kit delivery service, typographically leans heavily on the mid-century aesthetics. It tries to bring it into the 21st century by making it a bit sharper and placing it in a starker black and yellow color palette. The main wordmark is a customized version of Loose Caboose by Nick Curtis (an interpretation of Seymour Chwast’s Chwast Art Tone). The primary typeface in the branding system is Daria Petrova’s Zangezi.
The main adjustment to the base typeface for the wordmark is turning all of the rounder ball-terminals into sharper triangular terminals. This was either inspired by Zangezi, or in-turn led to Zangezi being the main display typeface for the brand. The website uses Milliard by René Bieder for all of the body copy and subheadings.
The brand’s sun icon, which is mainly used on the packing box, looks like a direct nod to the sun motifs used in the iconic mid-century design by Alexander Girard for the La Fonda del Sol restaurant. It’s easy to imagine that the mood board for this project included La Fonda Del Sol and lots of references to 1960s food design, like the Underground Gourmet by Milton Glaser.
Exact design credits are not known, but Partners in Crime agency are listed as having handled the overall repositioning of the brand.
Accompanying video by Tuna Fish Studio and Partners in Crime.
The website uses Zangezi and Milliard as the main typographic palette.
The delivery boxes use black and yellow and foreground the wordmark and the sun icon.
Design of La Fonda del Sol restaurant branding by Alexander Girard in 1960.
Old logo and the new one, as shown on Brand New website.
2 Comments on “Sunbasket branding”
I have no problem with any of the new design with exception of the main “wordmark”. It is too fat-bottomed/bottom-heavy, and it annoys me every time I look at it and messes with my eyes. If the letters were a bit bigger and they shaved some of the bottom off it would be much better. Or maybe slanting the bottoms so it actually looks the the shining sun has created the shadows of the letters. I so appreciate the knowledge that they messed with an actual font, but too bad they didn’t just use the actual font. At least the fat bottoms are broken up since the letters are separate. If they traded the sun for the farm scene and left the original font it would have been just fine … c’est la vie. I seldom rant about this staff, but that wordmark seriously irritates me, and I LOVE anything mid-century/psychedelic (’50/’60s) design, shouldn’t have messed with the font x 2!
I too have issue with the wordmark. I admire the striking typeface choices (Zangezi is beautiful), but at smaller scales the wordmark appears as though someone has crossed it out with a sharpie. However, It’s successful in that it is unique and memorable.