Mystery Ltd. is a London-based specialty brand design studio that creates integrated work for the hospitality and food and beverage sectors. This ranges from the creation of restaurant and bar interiors and brand environments to food and drink branding and packaging. The agency makes full use of traditional and modern production processes, such as creating graphic installations designed to build intrigue and give brands an authentic, rich, human touch through sign writing and prop making.
You’ve had tremendous success with the brand. Why do you think consumers have connected so readily with it?
phil seddon: With the same team working on all stages of the project, everybody involved had a really clear idea of what the brand represented. The brand’s mantra, “We believe in the power of sharing,” was a message that the consumers took to heart, and with founder Charlotte active in mentoring and partnering with other food brands, that ethos permeated the whole business. I think that means that consumers believe in the brand, and they have responded well to the hand-painted lettering that reinforces this human, noncorporate approach. We were inspired by hand-written campaign placards that matched the social and proactive ambition of the business.
Was the type painted freestyle or did you first design it on the computer?
The idea for the typography was always to keep it completely freestyle. We wanted it to feel as natural as possible. I try not to labor over the execution of the type so that it doesn’t look too contrived. I often have a rough idea of the composition of the pack in mind so I know when I should curve the type around a certain element, but generally the final composition happens at the final stage so I just crack open the paints and have fun. Getting away from the all-pervading digital screen is extremely therapeutic!
Why was hand-painted type appropriate for this project?
The brand called for a human, authentic, campaigning tone of voice—hand painting was the ideal way of representing this visually. Really, it’s the interaction between the type and the ingredients that gives the brand its individuality—so the shadows that are cast onto the type are what bring the voice of the brand and the quality of its gourmet ingredients together. This also helps communicate that the recipes are refined by hand rather than in the factory. Hand painting gives the brand warmth and a sense of attention to detail that a digitized typeface just can’t emulate.
When working with the client on a project that is 100 percent handcrafted, how do you manage edits and changes, especially to the type?
It’s important to us that the brands we design are practical as well as visually appealing, so it was key that we could demonstrate a way of rolling this concept out without losing the authenticity. Happily, utilizing simple technology in the form of a scanner and Adobe Photoshop enabled us to compose the final image and edit type and layout easily, while still using hand lettering and fantastic food photography. Thankfully, as the styling of the hand-rendered type is quite spontaneous, we aren’t in a position where we have to repaint it over and over again, making edits fairly painless. As the brand grows, we are constantly looking for ways of refining the process to make it even more flexible without losing our handcrafted feel.
product: G’NOSH
client: G’NOSH Ltd.
design firm: Mystery Ltd.
creative director/designer/hand letterer: Phil Seddon
photographer: Dan Einzig
medium: Acrylic white paint on uncoated board
country: United Kingdom
G’NOSH typography is hand painted onto black cards before being scanned and isolated in Adobe Photoshop, where the final brand environment is composed.
“A well-defined brand platform,” says Seddon, Mystery’s senior brand designer, “based around ‘sharing’ underpinned a strong hand-painted look which, when combined with strong food photography in installations, allowed us to create a tactile brand world that works as well on-screen as it does on-pack.”
