Working at the intersection of brand and digital. We envision, design and build brands across platforms both digital and physical.

These values drive our daily behaviours. They illuminate working in partnership with Koto and the clarity we will bring. They are distinct by design, reflecting our understanding of the complexity in building successful brands today.

We believe in the power of the ‘Beginners Mind’ — a Zen attitude of openness, eagerness and a lack of preconceptions. By being uncompromising in our positivity, we search for the best solution, we question everything, we deliver.

Cadence comes from acknowledging the need for rhythm from the beginning, from a creative ignition that can be chaotic and requires your trust, through to the diligence and agile reactivity of delivery. A rhythm built on experience, intelligence and doing the right thing.

We never start with the answer, design is hard work and re-invention is required. Set backs will happen and the unknown should be embraced. We harness infectious energy, built on huge collective experience and a talent to achieve the right results. We want to be the best.

We pride ourselves on being sector agnostic, working with businesses of all scales from start-ups to the world’s biggest brands globally.

Airbnb has spent the past decade working towards its vision of a world where anyone can belong anywhere. Over 300 million trips later and it’s launching Airbnb Plus: a new tier of homes that have been personally verified for quality and comfort. Not only does this broaden Airbnb’s appeal to even more guests, but it also allows the business to recognise those hosts who go above and beyond in their outstanding hospitality.

The Airbnb Plus identity reflects the consideration that goes into each of these properties, which have to be verified in person against a 100+ point checklist. Hand-drawn design elements convey the hosts’ personal touches and the human care that goes into each home, while providing Airbnb with a distinctive graphic approach to listing curated amenities.

The launch of Airbnb Plus sees a new colour – Olin – introduced into the Airbnb palette. It’s a paper-like natural texture that complements the human, handwritten qualities of the overall identity. This has been paired with a focused use of the primary Airbnb colour palette, while hand-authored amenities icons by the illustrator Yu Nagaba add to the warm welcome.

BlaBlaCar is a company on a journey. Already one of Europe’s leading start-ups, it’s steadily building a devoted community of like-minded passengers and drivers. Our challenge was to create a brand that brings to life the rich themes of their vision: a fairer, more open world of travel.

The two b’s of BlaBlaCar have been rendered as speech marks: a universal shorthand for social interaction. The overlap between them reflects the two sides of the passenger-driver experience and the connections made during a journey. By delivering a simple idea via a symbol that transcends a single language, we think BlaBlaCar is poised to become even more recognisable within the many markets in which it operates.

The compelling experience at the heart of BlaBlaCar is the ability to travel to hard-to-reach places easily and directly, while making meaningful personal connections along the way. Through a powerful combination of photography, illustration and messaging we’ve built a flexible brand that not only reflects the simplicity of the travel experience, but also the broad diversity of the community and the myriad different reasons they choose BlaBlaCar.

“The weeks Koto spent traveling with our service to meet our members, and the dozens of interviews they conducted with the teams, have successfully shaped their understanding of our company, our values and the way we change the world. The new brand is both modern and inspirational. As I immediately said on the very first day they showed us the new identity: it simply is brilliant.”

This identity was created in collaboration with Frédéric, Francis, Nicolas, Monika, Maya and Tara from BlaBlaCar. Illustrations by Iwona Kazia Kalitan-Młodkowska and Maya Stepien.
Photography by Keiran Perry. Custom typeface by Grilli Type. Animation by Michael William Lester.

Working in collaboration with the Coca-Cola design team, we re-imagined the Fanta global visual identity. Built on the bold, vibrant and fruity taste of Fanta, we hand-constructed the new logo out of paper and then re-created it in digital form, while simultaneously building the rest of the brand around the visual approach.

Fanta is one of the world’s most widely recognised and best-loved beverage brands, so our work had to translate seamlessly into different languages. This meant testing our custom approach to Latin typography by recreating it in the letterforms and logograms of Japanese, Thai, Amharic, Korean and Arabic.

Fanta comes in a seemingly endless selection of flavours globally, reflecting every corner of the world. We created 42 handcrafted fruit depictions, getting to know our pomelos from our guaranas in the process.

Working closely with London type foundry Colophon, we created a bespoke three weight Fanta typeface drawn from the bold, vibrant brand. To round it off, we hand-drew 56 fruit-based emojis for Fanta’s own twist on these globally recognised symbols