Practice
Full scope
Scope
Strategy; Naming; Identity; Packaging; Guidelines; Web Design; Custom Build
Year
Client
Pastoral
Link
Pastoral
Food studio — brand, editorial site, and packaging.
Pastoral was founded by two food professionals — a chef and a food stylist — to produce and sell preserved foods: jams, pickles, ferments, and condiments made from single-origin and heritage-variety produce sourced directly from farms. The products were exceptional and the story behind them was genuinely interesting. Neither had received the brand treatment they deserved.
The founders came to us with a product range already in development, a trade launch six months away, and no brand beyond a working name they weren't confident about. The commission was complete: name, identity, packaging, and a website that could serve both the trade audience (buyers from independent retailers and restaurants) and the end consumer (people who would encounter the products on a shop shelf and find their way to the site). Two different audiences, one site, one brand.
The challenge
Pastoral needed to escape food branding’s rustic clichés. The market’s kraft paper and hand‑drawn type signaled sameness, not authenticity. Their rigor in sourcing and precision in production demanded a brand language of intellectual engagement with ingredients, distinct from the orthodoxy and credible through new visual territory.
The work
Pastoral’s naming and brand strategy ran together. Pastoral conveyed rooted honesty and agricultural clarity. Strategy centered on provenance — precise, curious, unshowy. Identity drew from scientific illustration: serif type, produce‑based palette, modular labels. Packaging balanced shelf impact with detail. The site split trade and consumer paths, built in React with headless CMS to support workflows Framer couldn’t.
The outcome
Pastoral launched six months in; all twelve buyers requested follow‑ups. Within a year, it secured eleven retailers, four restaurants, and tripled website enquiries.
More work
