Adams & Harlow

How we created a contemporary brand of pies with a credible 100-year heritage...

...without telling porkies.

Creating a brand identity for a new range of pies launched by a family with a long tradition of pie making.
 
Our clients were two sisters whose grandfathers from both sides of the family ran rival Lincolnshire pork pie businesses back in the 1900s. This slice of family history led to our idea. With illustrations based on archive photographs of Mr Adams and Mr Harlow, we created a brand story based on the friendly rivalry between the two men. Always trying to out-do each other, each tells tall stories about their 'extraordinary pork pies'. Using a blend of quirky illustrations and old-fashioned typography, we created a brand with both heritage and modernity. Honest.

The bespoke logotype is based on a simple sans-serif font common in the early 1900s, it has some quirks within the lettering to make it unique. The ‘S’ is based on a meat hook, reference to the butchers heritage.

The pies are carefully hand wrapped in greaseproof paper and labelled with a simple colour coded sticker.

Each of the pies is colour coded using a the brand colour palette of muted tones.

The identity features Illustrations of both Mr Adams* & Mr Harlow based on photographic reference. Across the brand they continue their longstanding friendly rivalry, both attempting to out-do each other with their "extraordinary pork pies".

*Mr Adams is wearing a 'Pork pie hat', which he was known for wearing.

A set of illustrations of Mr Adams and Mr Harlow were created to comunicate brand messages on the website and marketing materials.

Illustration featured on the homepage of the website shows Mr Harlow telling Mr Harlow one of his 'Extraordinary Pork pies'

Visit the website at www.adamsandharlow.co.uk