Toronto studio Public Address 'rebrands the humble vegetable'

Public Address created the colourful new branding and visual identity for the new plant-based food brand Wholly Veggie, aiming to "buck the trend of fake meat in favour of a veggie-forward approach". It worked across the new website; sustainable packaging, merch such as hats, T-shirts and tote bags, and much more.

"Wholly Veggie's goal was as much to rebrand vegetables themselves, as it was to re-envision the look for their own brand," says the team. As such, the designs look to mirror the playfulness and diversity of the vegetables they represent and "help vegetables break away from their reputation for being boring and difficult to prepare."

The wordmark uses a hole device in the 'o' of 'Wholly', which acts as a window for product photography that can be modified across various applications.

While green features in some of the designs, Public Address was keen to avoid clichés around the colour and its use in the plant-based sector and so created a brand colour palette inspired by the broad spectrum of tones seen in natural veg. "From the deep red of beets to the warm white of cauliflower, to the bright purple of cabbage, vegetables are way more colourful than they get credit for," says the studio.

The packaging designs deliberately move away from the trend that Public Address found in its research for 80% of most food brand packaging being dedicated to depicting the food that's inside.

Rather than honing in on product photography, the designers opted to make Wholly Veggie's new branding the focal point of its packaging to create an on-shelf standout.

Public Address has previously worked on projects including the branding for Virgin Fest; designs for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games and bottle designs for California winemaker Randall Grahm's wine brand, The Language of Yes.