Featured image for Ugly

Ugly

by Theresa Christine Johnson on 07/09/2015 | 3 Minute Read

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Do you know what you’re drinking? The beverages we consume today is filled with all sorts of ingredients, many of which are used as fillers or have names we can’t even pronounce! Hugh Thomas and Joe Benn created Ugly Unsweet Water after realizing that the drinks they were consuming that were supposed to make them faster, stronger, or more beautiful actually left them feeling slow, weak, and ugly. With the help of Identica, they created a beverage that avoids marketing fluff and presents itself in a straight-forward and funny way.

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“The product was created for consumers who are looking to make informed healthy choices without needing a science degree to understand what they are really consuming. Inspired by the product ethos we wanted the brand to be totally honest and transparent, avoiding marketing fluff and empty promises.”

Hugh Thomas says, “Ugly hasn’t been dressed up to look sweet, pretty and innocent. Refreshingly, it’s just spring water with a splash of delicious flavour. If you don’t love us, that’s fine, but hopefully you love what we are trying to do.”

Ugly really is anything but its name. A clear bottle puts the good quality of the water on display, and each flavor variety is color-coded. Blackberry is rich purple and a bit of pink, cucumber and mint is a mixture of greens, lemon and ginger features rich yellows, and raspberry and lime is mostly pink with a small dash of green. These hues are the only color on the bottle, popping against the white label.

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The brand name is written in large, white letters, right over a large patch of color that looks like it was almost painted on the label with watercolors. The lowercase “g” has a small drop, like a single drop of the refreshing libation inside. Ugly’s branding is minimal, allowing the beautiful hues and the unusual name to catch the attention of the consumer.

“To ensure that consumers appreciated the irony in the name, and to ensure Ugly still felt approachable and friendly, we created a fun logotype and locked this us with the core product message: ‘unsweet water,’ again stressing the positive difference between this and competitor offers.  Because the brand is all about transparency we designed the logo to be white out of the watercolour background. To keep the design simple and impactful, we changed the colour of the watercolour background to communicate the different flavours across the range.”

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Designed by Identica

Client: Ugly

Country: United Kingdom