Ugly Cookie is a family (A dad and two teenagers) owned cookie company from in Helsinki, Finland. What started as useful family past time, a dad looking for an

opportunity to teach how business works, how product development, marketing and eventually sales work, unexpectedly turned into a real company offering what might be the best cookies in Helsinki, if not the Nordic region. The company is all about soft-baked, American-style cookies. Hand made in with quality ingredients from sustainable, ethical sources. No crap. The values the company strive to show in everything they do are authenticity, kindness and fun.

Brief

Design a visual ID and brand worthy of the straightforward goodness the company wants to represent, and would extend beyond the delicious cookies and engage consumers on a personal level.

Objective & Budget

Build the most beloved cookie brand in Europe.

Identity, visual concept, packaging, website & SOME for 5000€

Why call it Ugly? “We don’t care much for appearances. It’s not how things look, it’s how they actually are that’s important. We’re curious about what lies beneath the surface. It is substance we’re after. And you can taste it in our cookies. We believe in an honest experience. And that’s pretty much the way we feel about people too.” The Ugly team.

The Ugly Cookie brand celebrates imperfection and encourages us to own our flaws, real or perceived. The take me as I am, assertive Ugly attitude is where the creative idea originates from. What better way to be genuine, challenge the ideals of beauty and appearance, demonstrate inclusivity and empathy, then to give the visual brand the things we all have in common. A Face. Opinions. Attitudes.

The key brand asset is the logotype, created with the word ugly and the changing irregular shapes of different cookies. The logo is a charming and playful face, a memorable and easily recognisable visual element, that can be applied to all touch points.

The cookies are the heroes of the the brand. The image concept treat the cookies as sculptural objects, more like beautiful art or high fashion than delicious food. In the brand images the contradictions of beauty, are constantly at play.

Natural materials, delicious pastel flavour colours, and dramatic photography in

combination are the basic elements of Ugly visual ID and packaging.

Ugly AF. Proudly. The tone of voice of the Ugly brand is bold and playful. Perhaps the most visible in the choice of names for the flavour variants, for example, Not Quite White, Plain As Milk, Lowly Lime, So Sad Caramel and Orange You Mad.

The Ugly cookie brand has only recently been launched but we have already noticed a surge in popularity and awareness, the branding seems to be as big a feature as the taste of the cookies. The work done to date, sales and branding, serves as a proof of concept, offers a solid base for the first investment round, with the objective of opening the first Ugly Cookie retail outlets in Helsinki in 2021.

The Ugly cookie has become a playful analogy for us all as humans. A reminder that we all have imperfections, flaws, faults, that we all make mistakes. We don’t need to be defined by them. In fact, instead of hiding them, feeling guilty or ashamed, they can be owned and celebrated as sources of strength. After all, it is often our imperfections that make us into the unique, special people that we are.