Wildling’s identity by PAPA TOM is raw and deliberately imperfect — The Brand Identity – Home of the Greatest in Graphic & Brand Design

PAPA TOM’s starting point for Wildling – a non-alcoholic orchard spritzer – was a category full of familiar codes: natural, sustainable and often rooted in a romantic idea of nature. Moving away from that language led the studio into a visual world that is raw, atmospheric and deliberately imperfect. Wildling is made with fruit juice and sparkling water by using apples from regional orchard growers and wild nettle, which gives it a herbal edge. It’s developed in the Schwäbisches Mostviertel, an orchard region of Swabia in southern Germany.

The Schwäbisches Mostviertel is also a regional association, based near Stuttgart, that brings together local towns, businesses and residents to protect the area’s traditional orchard meadows. The drink is one way to create visibility and value around a landscape that needs a future, and the association took the idea to PAPA TOM, asking for a position, name, look and system that would work in gastronomy, at events and in retail. “They questioned it, turned it around and pushed it further,” explains the association’s Managing Director Nadine Thoman. PAPA TOM is a branding studio based in Backnang, which sits inside the Schwäbisches Mostviertel, so this was local work. “We were close enough to make sure the sensory experience and the brand experience pointed in the same direction,” Co-Founders & Creative Directors Thomas Korell and Pascal Palmieri tell us.

“Nobody wants to stand at a bar holding something that looks like a funny little juice,” they continue, therefore deciding to position Wildling to sit beside beer, wine or an aperitif with confidence. “It still reads as natural and regional because the story is not invented. It comes from the product, the growers, the landscape and the idea of protecting orchard meadows.” PAPA TOM knows those meadows well, and the name came out of their roughness: old trees, uneven ground, wild herbs, weather, work, growth and decay. “It did not come from simply wanting to be different. It came from trying to be more honest,” Korell and Palmieri explain. “Wildling sounds like something that grows on its own terms. Something rooted, untamed and not made to behave nicely.”

The photography creates a documentary feel, which is intentionally not too clean and feels close to the place where the product comes from, with real landscapes, meadows, woods, hands, work, light, blur and movement. 3D artwork stages the bottle and packaging with more control over form, reflections and composition. AI extends moods and pushes the visual world into something slightly more unfamiliar. “It should feel more like fragments of a world,” Korell and Palmieri note. “The important thing was that the techniques did not become the story. They all had to serve the same feeling: raw, regional, reduced and a little wild.”

The type system pairs Overused Grotesk with Bradford. Overused Grotesk is used for information, and it is clear, reduced and direct, giving the system a contemporary, functional base. Bradford brings in the character. It has strength, edges and a certain wildness, but it is grounded by its serifs. “The typeface adds something rooted and almost Swabian in its down-to-earth quality,” Korell and Palmieri detail.

PAPA TOM drew the organic ‘W’ logo element from scratch. “It is inspired by animal paws and thought of almost figuratively: the footprint of a creature that goes its own way,” Korell and Palmieri tell us. “We did not want a classic nature symbol. No apple, no leaf, no cute meadow icon.” The ‘W’ appears most prominently on the label, where it gives the small bottle a strong presence. That bottle is clear glass, which has a down-to-earth, almost beer-like feel.

“With orchard fruit, ecology and regionality, green and brown are almost the expected answer,” the studio explains. “We wanted Wildling to be recognised before it had to explain itself.” The colour is Pantone Orange 021, a signal orange that is direct, loud and raw. Wildling is sold through regional direct sales, with a focus on gastronomy, events and selected regional partners. “What people notice first is usually the look,” Thoman notes. “They do not expect an orchard spritzer to appear like this: orange, reduced, raw and not nostalgic at all.”