Judge's comments:

An all-round exceptional piece of work in multiple categories. A clever way to celebrate colour while still retaining the core range. We loved how the “Engineering Joy” strategy created a colour palette of emotion, practicality and beauty. Make it rain!

Description:

Blunt umbrellas are an award-winning iconic Aotearoa New Zealand product, but through research, we discovered the current brand was more of a sales portal, lacking critical emotional connection with consumers.

We were tasked with building out a global brand platform to drive expansion into new markets and achieve growth targets. To do this, we identified the need to build more equity into the Blunt core range of 10 colours by bringing them to life in new and exciting ways.

The problem was that while people loved the one-off collaborations and seasonal editions of Blunt umbrellas, the core range was being forgotten.

The rebrand is built around the idea of ‘Engineering Joy’, which has an inherent tension - form and function, engineering and emotion, practicality and beauty. So we set this tension at the heart of how we approached the core Blunt colours. Offsetting the joy, energy, emotion and self-expression of the colours with the premium engineered innovation of black that is synonymous with Blunt.

We grounded all the core colours in black, helping amplify and celebrate the individual colourways of each umbrella. Delivered through a design system that celebrates the diversity of these colours succinctly, without overwhelming.

By recreating all our products as comprehensive 3D renders, we were able to amplify and elevate colour, picking up all the highlights and maximising every tone, creating immersive colour worlds for each umbrella. These renders gave us complete control over individual product colours within an environment where we could frame and animate in any way we needed to.

We also developed fun and functional ways to celebrate our suite of colours, such as an iconic B colour swatch book, new black packaging with a pop of colour highlighted in our new iconic B, and a black merchandising stand that creates a bright rainbow of colour instore.

Colour is a crucial part of the new Blunt identity. Functionally it helps to navigate the range, emotionally it brings a sense of joy and style recognition. Using colour in a bold way helps bring a sense of identity back to the core Blunt range, and unity to the entire range in a way that’s all about Engineering Joy.