Happetsy: A Retro-Modern Brand Identity That Resonates

Anamarija Leljak's Award-Winning Design Balances Old-School Charm and Modern Minimalism

Anamarija Leljak found inspiration in the positive emotions that humans experience when they reunite with their pets after a long day. This emotional connection is visually represented through a modern-retro aesthetic, featuring happy, cartoonish pets jumping out of a box. The design's strength lies in its simplicity and the playful interplay between old-school retro style and modern design minimalism.

Happetsy's brand identity is unique due to its clever use of color, typography, and patterns. The retro style is evident in the color palette, handwritten typeface, and polka dot patterns. In contrast, the clean design, layouts, empty spaces, and sans serif typeface provide a fresh, modern touch. This balance creates a brand identity that is both nostalgic and contemporary.

The design was realized using Adobe Illustrator to maintain vector quality. The logo design adheres to the Golden Ratio rule, ensuring visual appeal. The final designs were delivered in RGB, CMYK, and Pantone colors to ensure consistent brand color representation across all media.

Technical specifications include printing thank you cards on 200g matte paper. This decision aligns with Happetsy's product offering of quality yet affordable products. All graphics and illustrations were vectorized and saved as print-ready files to maintain the brand's visual story.

The brand manual guides the client in presenting a consistent brand story. The use of a retro dot pattern and catchy retro colors across all media creates a recognizable brand appearance, enabling the target audience to connect and recognize the brand even without seeing the logo. This design project, which started in March 2019 and finished in May 2019, was based in Denmark.

Research revealed that the target audience, Millennials living in South-West America, seek emotional attachments to brands, especially in the pet industry. The illustrative logo and modern-retro look deliver this emotional connection. The logo combines an organic part (a pleasant illustration of a cat and dog) and a rectangle, symbolizing stability and loyalty in American culture.

Challenges included the duration of shipping and non-sustainable production, which were addressed by creating a brand identity that expresses trust, loyalty, and connection to end customers, fostering an emotional bond. The brand identity evokes positive feelings in customers through its simplicity and playful interplay of old-school retro style and modern elements.

The design was recognized with the Silver A' Design Award in 2021, a testament to its creative and professional excellence. This award is given to designs that demonstrate outstanding expertise, innovation, and artistic skill, introducing positive feelings, amazement, and wonder.