BEETROOT DESIGN GROUP

Already a few years ago, the multi-award-winning design studio Beetroot launched the visual identity for yiayia and friends, a multi-layered food, design and education project. Conceived to be scalable and based on profound storytelling, both the brand and the changeable illustrations that characterise the visual identity are thriving impressively. This flexible application option with high recognition value shows its strength above all in the growing product range, as Yiayia is constantly being joined by new friends, which Beetroot presents in a charming way.

Interview with BEETROOT DESIGN GROUP

Red Dot: With the corporate identity for yiayia and friends you have pulled off a major coup – it is growing with the company. Did you believe in this development right from the start?
BEETROOT DESIGN GROUP: We couldn’t have predicted the exponential growth of the company, but yiayia and friends was conceived from the start as an expandable universe. The original illustration established the design parameters that still guide the brand’s identity today. The use of negative space, how each character shapes and is shaped by the adjoining one, the characters’ distinctive eyes that serve as the logo mark – these are all tools that were created from the beginning and define how the visual identity grows with the brand. It is important that an idea can grow without becoming repetitive.

How big of a challenge is it to make the illustrations flexibly scalable?
The design style of the yiayia illustrations makes them both flexible and scalable. A greater challenge is adapting the illustrations to irregular product shapes, such as making a kitchen spatula look like a pig or a rooster. As we expand the yiayia and friends universe, we are adding new characters that stay true to the original illustration style, but need to adapt to the requirements of new product shapes and packaging.

Is yiayia and friends so successful primarily because the brand is based on catchy storytelling?
Storytelling is an important part of the brand’s success because people love stories that they can relate to and that resonate with their own experiences. Yiayia as a character exists under different guises in most cultures; the way of life she represents is a shared ideal. Yiayia was inspired by a real person, one of our own grandmothers. Today, this almost mythical but very real figure is a memory. But she stands for the values that the brand wants to bring back into the world in a contemporary way.