Energizing Innocence

In 2021, we began collaborating with Rob Clarke on a commission to create a bespoke typeface for Innocent Drinks. This was exciting for us, as we’ve always loved the company’s branding. The project involved designing an alternative to the font they had been using for a long time, while retaining certain key details – such as the rounded corners.

The concepts we explored for the new typeface were the brand identity concepts: honest, human, playful and unexpected. Based on this we made 4 proposals. In the first proposal we worked around the idea of adding certain unexpected details such as the short t crossbar and the asymmetrical c. The second proposal focused more on the human and friendly concepts by adding a subtle handwritten feel by having out-strokes in letters like l, I, u, n…we also added a touch of unexpectedness in the i dot, which featured non-geometric shape with a little slant. The third proposal goes a bit further on the handwritten influence by adding a bit of irregular and playful subtle curves, reinforcing the unexpected concept. Finally, the fourth proposal explored an upright italic style, which also included an unconventional two-story a, adding a playful twist.

This proposal is a review of the current typeface in use with added personality details and a more human feel.

This is a more friendly option with a subtle handwritten feel. Also has an element from the brand, the dot on the i and j which will be also reflected on the punctuation.

Here the dot from option 2 is kept, and the rounded terminals are a bit irregular and playful.

This proposal goes towards the upright italic genre with a unique approach playing with the unspected. Rounded w, v, y, g convined with two-story a.

The final typeface combined elements from each of the proposals. It includes handwritten details, such as the out-stroke in the l, which adds a human touch. It also features subtle, unexpected curves, as in the Q, along with a touch of contrast in the diacritics and some punctuation marks. Overall, it’s a playful typeface that feels friendly, straightforward, and honest in its design.

The chosen option gathers features from all the proposals to fit the brief in the best possible way.

Innocent Sans in use on the company logo, packaging and website.

We achieved to represent the brand’s core values in a two-weight type family that works well both in digital communications, such as the company website, and in print, particularly on their packaging.

Later in the project, we received a second commission to extend the typeface to Cyrillic. As usual, we carried out a thorough analysis to determine which details from the Latin could be applied to the new script in order to maintain the same feel and concepts.
We worked on the new shapes considering how to translate from the Latin without imposing anything into the Cyrillic. Letter Ka in many typefaces is exactly the same as Latin k, however we always try to maintain a more faithful to the Cyrillic structure. Generally we also try to keep both scripts at the same level in terms of keeping their natural proportion, hence we make the x-height of the Cyrillic a touch higher than this of the Latin in order to keep them visually equal in text.

Letters like el and Dje have a new type of curve which does not exist in Latin, however it fits perfectly well. Also Be has a little flick on the top terminal which is very subtle yet very important because it brings this handwritten feel from the Latin into the Cyrillic.