Simon Baynes Wholesale is a family-owned fruit and vegetable business with a rich history dating back to 1920. Founded in the bustling York Market, the business has been passed down through generations, maintaining a strong reputation for delivering high-quality fresh produce to restaurants, hotels, and catering businesses across the region. While the business has thrived for over a century, it recognized the need for a brand refresh to better reflect its growth, appeal to new customers, and celebrate its deep-rooted heritage.
Challenge
As a business with a long-standing history, Simon Baynes Wholesale needed to modernize its brand identity without losing the connection to its heritage and reputation built over the past century. The challenge was to refresh the brand in a way that honored the family’s legacy and the company’s traditional roots while signaling its evolution into a modern, forward-thinking business. Additionally, the brand refresh required launch collateral to support the business’s continued growth and reintroduction to a new generation of customers.
Objectives
Modernize the Brand Identity: Update the visual identity to reflect the company’s growth while staying true to its history and legacy, established since 1920.
Celebrate Tradition and Freshness: Emphasize both the heritage of the family business and its commitment to delivering high-quality, fresh produce.
Appeal to a Broader Audience: Ensure the refreshed brand appeals to both existing long-term customers and a new generation of buyers in the wholesale and hospitality sectors.
Develop Launch Collateral: Create marketing materials to introduce the refreshed brand to the market and celebrate the company’s legacy.
Approach
Discovery Phase
We began by diving into the rich history of Simon Baynes Wholesale, focusing on how to blend their heritage with a modernized brand. This involved:
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Historical Research and Stakeholder Interviews: Exploring the company’s journey from its founding in York Market in 1920 to its growth as a trusted wholesale supplier.
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Competitor Analysis: Examining how other long-established businesses in the produce and wholesale market maintain relevance while staying true to their roots.
Brand Strategy
The core strategy was built around two pillars: honoring tradition and embracing change. Simon Baynes Wholesale wanted to celebrate its 100-year history while positioning itself for continued growth and modernization. The strategy focused on:
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Blending Heritage with Modernity: Crafting a brand identity that reflects the long-standing history of the business, but with a modern twist to appeal to newer customers.
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Emphasizing Quality and Freshness: Maintaining the company’s focus on fresh, high-quality produce while enhancing the way this message was visually communicated.
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Telling the Family Story: Ensuring that the brand celebrated the family legacy and the roots of the business in York Market while looking toward the future.
Visual Identity Refresh
Logo Redesign
The new logo was designed to honor the company’s origins while introducing a more modern, streamlined appearance. United by Design retained key elements of the original identity, such as the traditional color palette of greens, but updated the logo with a cleaner, contemporary typeface. A subtle icon of fresh produce, inspired by the early days at York Market, was incorporated into the design.
The updated logo created a bridge between past and present, reflecting the company’s century-long heritage in the produce industry while signaling a forward-looking approach.
Fresh Color Palette
A refreshed color palette was introduced to bring vibrancy to the brand while staying true to its organic roots. The primary colors of rich pop green and textural wood paid homage to the produce markets of old, while the fresh green reflected the vitality and variety of the company’s wide range of produce. These colors not only communicated the company’s dedication to freshness but also gave a nod to its heritage and the natural products at the heart of the business.
Typography
The chosen typography was a modernized serif font that balanced the company’s history with a clean, contemporary feel. This typeface was paired with a secondary, bold sans-serif option for more modern applications. The combination allowed for flexibility in branding materials, keeping the historical feel while ensuring legibility and modern aesthetics.
Imagery and Illustrations
To celebrate the company’s roots in York Market and its connection to the land, United by Design incorporated historical photography alongside modern, vibrant imagery of fresh produce. Vintage-style illustrations were created to evoke the charm of traditional market life, blending seamlessly with clean, contemporary photography that emphasized the quality and freshness of the products.
Launch Collateral
United by Design developed a range of launch collateral to accompany the brand refresh, ensuring that Simon Baynes Wholesale had the tools to communicate its updated identity while celebrating its 100-year legacy:
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Heritage Brochures: A key piece of collateral was a centenary brochure, which told the story of the Baynes family’s journey from York Market to becoming a major supplier in the region. This brochure celebrated the company’s history and introduced the refreshed brand to customers, featuring both vintage photos and modern visuals.
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Packaging and Labels: New packaging designs, incorporating the updated logo and color palette, were created to enhance the presentation of the fresh produce. These designs blended the modern and traditional elements of the brand, ensuring the produce stood out while reflecting the company’s long-standing heritage.
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Vehicle and Uniform: The company’s delivery vehicles and staff uniforms were also redesigned to reflect the refreshed brand. The vehicle wraps featured the modernized logo and updated color palette, ensuring that the company’s presence on the road mirrored its refreshed identity.
Brand Messaging
The brand messaging was crafted to celebrate both the company’s heritage and its ongoing commitment to innovation. Reinforcing the business’s long-standing tradition while communicating its dedication to delivering fresh, high-quality produce.
Outcome
The refreshed brand identity successfully blended Simon Baynes Wholesale’s rich history with a modernized, forward-thinking visual identity. The project resulted in a cohesive brand that honored the family’s roots in York Market while appealing to a broader and more contemporary audience that has been stretching further afield across the North.
Key Results
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Increased Brand Awareness: The launch of the refreshed identity, combined with the centenary celebration, created buzz in the market, driving engagement from both existing customers and new prospects.
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Stronger Customer Connection: Customers appreciated the brand’s storytelling, particularly the focus on the family’s 100-year legacy, which reinforced trust and loyalty.
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Improved Market Positioning: The modernized brand, combined with the high-quality launch collateral, helped Simon Baynes Wholesale stand out in a competitive market, aligning the business with both tradition and innovation.
Conclusion
United by Design’s brand identity refresh for Simon Baynes Wholesale successfully honored the company’s 100-year legacy while modernizing its visual and verbal identity to appeal to today’s market. The combination of traditional design elements and contemporary updates ensured that the brand retained its heritage while attracting new customers, providing a strong foundation for the business’s continued success. The comprehensive launch collateral further reinforced the brand’s position as a trusted, forward-thinking wholesale supplier, rooted in quality and tradition.