Creative Lead | Branding | Digital Product Design
Creating a holistic brand experience including interactive storytelling, corporate identity, ice cream bike, and e-commerce website to sell sheep products locally to consumers and retailers.
Milchschäferei Amalia
Sandra von Pluto
2018 – 2020
Project Duration | 3 years
Personae
Customer Journey
Moodboards
Logo | Word
Logo | Image
Typography
Color
Image Selection
Image Style
Brand Patterns
Story
Illustrations
Sitemap
Wireframes
Visual Design
UI Library
Prototype
Motion Identity
Final Website
Ice-Bike Concept
Design Lead, Brand, UX, UI, Development
Brand, Illustration, Animation
Brand
Industrial
Development
Weather Module
What was the biggest challenge in this project?
Consulting the client to be brave enough to combine an e-commerce website with interactive storytelling.
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Sandra and Tillmann, the founders of Amalia, show us that raising sheep in harmony with nature is possible.
In Bad Oldesloe, in the north of Germany, they have built an ecosystem that ensures healthy plants, animals and humans by following the principles of a holistic management.
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Unique knowledge from ancient times is partly lost today. Going back to the roots of domestication might teach us more about natural cycles, sustainable frameworks and sheep herding.
Photo Source and Licence
arkd - stock.adobe.com
The original idea of the corporate identity leads back to early cave drawings in which sheep were drawn with natural elements like the sun inside of their body. The sun is one element influencing a healthy framework in which sheep should be raised even today.
Unfortunately it was vey hard to separate the sheep from a goat. Cutting the horns off changed this approach so much that it didn’t work anymore. New ideas were necessary.
The final design is a flexible, colourful corporate identity in motion with a unique and handmade typography based logo which is complemented by an illustrated sheep – implying the brands principles of farming.
A variations of the sheep were designed to enable the client to play with his identity: an adult female and male sheep as well as a young one (side and front). A smaller version of the sheep serves as a possible fav icon.
The sheep can also adapt in color while switching between the different product categories (milk, meat, ...).
Amalia’s primary colours are green and yellow. Secondary colours (violet, rose) are added for the product categories on the website. Tertiary colours are used within the story and Instagram (dark red, light green).
The first drafts of the custom made Amalia font were closely based on Cavemen Dingbats. That font set is fictional but maintaining the idea of prehistoric art.
Taking the first drafts from above as a starting point a more modern font was developed, which M symbolises the mountains of Slovenia – the origin of Sandra’s sheep. The font was then combined with a font called Cera Round Pro from Jacob Runge.
Martin Lorenz of TwoPoints
A static, logo-centered visual identity is like someone who shouts the same message over and over again. A flexible visual identity on the other hand is a bit more eloquent.
Four branded illustrations are summarizing the key essentials of the brands approach of farming.
Amalia
– builds up soil and protect it.
– only feed their sheep with grass and hay.
– gives their sheep a long mother-child time.
– believes that all foods has their own terroir.
The interactive story is visualising the brands holistic management approach which is based on a decision making process that allows practitioners to mimic ancient wild herds in a manner that heals degraded soils, improves ecosystem function, and builds biodiversity in grasslands.
For Amalia we created not only a corporate identity but a flexible visual identity (FVI). A smart system that can formulate different messages and adapt to different situations by offering various brand patterns.
A colourful, and organic shaped website with shop highlighting the brands principles of holistic management through an interactive storytelling approach and lovely design and animation details.
A brand does not live in a static world anymore. To create a state of the art website animations are required. This one is used as a background layer behind the brand quotes.
Did you know that when a sheep falls on his back that it is not able to stand up without help? We took that story to design the 404 page of the Amalia website.
We animated the brands logo as well – trying to give the customer a hint on the origin of Amalia's sheep: the mountains of Slovenia. The mountains are created by the tiny sun dots jumping around. Our way to make the brand more playful.
Animations are integrated as .JSON files into the website using After Effects and Bodymovin.
A local weather preview of Bad Oldesloe, the home of Amalia, is embedded in the header of the home page.
The e-commerce shop has three product categories separated by color. The color change effects the page, the navigation as well as the shopping cart.
Photo Source and Licence
– okorokovanatalya | stock.adobe.com
– Stephanie Frey | stock.adobe.com
– Natalia Lisovskaya | stock.adobe.com
An ice bike designed and produced by XYZ CARGO bikes Hamburg which is optimised and branded by us from a service design perspective.
We had a close look at the ice cream bike from a service design perspective. From the post ice cream phase over the exploration of the product to the selection and payment phase.
Basic requirements:
– See that its sheep milk from far away
– Easy overview of ice cream and pricing
– Contactless payment
– Coin payment
– Online bike tracking
– Tell the story of Amalia
Tiny features like a music box – with sheep sounds for a payment with coins – should enhance the experience especially for children.
How did you acquired this project?
Sandra called me to help her with her corporate identity while I was hiking through Slovenia – the country of origin of Sandras' Krainer sheep.
