Paul Brunngård is Sweden's largest retailer within shoe care. The company’s mission is to get people to take better care of their shoes—so they look great and last longer. We were asked to develop a brand new product line for sneakers; name, identity and packaging that would make a splash in the category.

Shoe Shame encourages you to obsess over your sneakers. In fact, the name is a nod to anyone who has ever felt out of place in a particular context. It also relates to essential sustainability issues, how we take care of the clothes and shoes we buy, and to a general interest in caring for and appreciating what you have.

The clean white colour plays a key role in the packaging, while yellow makes the product easy to find. The O focuses on product effects—Box Fresh Technology—and is a recurring design element. Playful pictograms and tonality guide the user. The naming of the various products (for example "Lose the dirt" and "Remember white") distinguishes Shoe Shame in its segment. The humorous tone is important. After all, it should be simple and fun to lose the dirt.

The Shoe Shame brand was launched rather recently, and therefore we have no details of sales figures from that specific division. One measure of success for this project, however, is that the product line is broadly available in online stores as well as physical ones—such as the trendy sneakers shop for the fashion conscious.

From a design perspective, the brand has been awarded top rankings in a number of creative competitions: It won silver and a merit at the Swedish Design Award in 2018, and was recently shortlisted for a Golden Egg (Swedish design and advertising award), and at the One Show Awards (NB not official!).