Artline Rebrand

As a writing instruments producer, Artline creates pens for every demographic, from School to work to home users. The stationery market itself is a very safe one that doesn't go out there. We realised through research analysis, one that has primary equity in the brand name, with brand design element having low memory points. The overall brand design had to disrupt the market, attract users, and be perceived to be worth the higher price point Artline commands. Our Rebrand allowed Artline to own black in the stationery aisle and brought multiple ownable design elements into play that increased memory connections with consumers (packaging shape, category colour segmentation, brand story, the design shape/struc).

We did an extensive study of the stationery market across various markets to create something that could stand out across regions. Our challenge was to disrupt while ensuring a heritage brand did not lose brand equity. Our major shift came when critical research showed us all the equity was in the name, not in any historical design element. This allowed us to completely create new design factors with a long term focus. The testing and reactions from distributors immediately show a marked difference in brand capture. Our primary aim in the Aus-NZ market is to increase brand memory while retaining higher profit% in a category with CAGR of 1% only. The actual product design will change in the next branding stage.

The new brand language is created with long term memory creation in view. From the black colour meant to pop out at shelf point, to the shape of the packaging meant to disrupt, to the category coloured curves drawing the viewer in. As we studied the retailer shelves, we realised all packaging used rectangles with rounded corners. For us the brand needed to seed itself into all elements, so we reworked the shape of the pack to stand out from what's in market, while being engineered to work across various SKU requirements. The design on pack creates a strong brand base for the logo. The category markers became a brand element. Back of pack is used as a secondary brand advertiser and media for the brand story.

The brand design needed to be implemented keeping in mind the large variety of categories and SKUs the Antoine products have on offer. Large hang-sells for correction fluids, to 1,2,4, and 20x packs for pens, to hard plastic options for markers and so many more. The design was made so that it had maximum impact on viewers in a low/mid-engagement market. However creating those gestalt elements meant consistency was a tougher task. We worked hard at the curves we utilized, to create brand guidelines that allowed each product to consistently deliver the same memory points. We carefully engineered the packs to create brand walls in retail shelf space (that in Au break up SKUs based on category instead of brand).