Wine specialist brand rediscovers its roots with new visual identity

Laithwaites, a UK home-delivery wine retailer, revealed a new brand identity designed by Manchester creative agency LOVE. Tapping into the adventure at the heart of the business, the rebrand brings tales of wine discovery to the fore to help the brand build rapport and reputation with a new generation of wine explorers.

With almost half a million subscribers built up over 50 years in the wine business, Laithwaites is recognised as one of the pioneers in direct-to-consumer wine retail. But with an increasingly crowded market and constant innovation in D2C subscriptions across sectors, they realised the importance of staying relevant and the opportunities a refreshed brand identity would bring.

“This rebrand is about doubling down on our reason for being and reiterating what we’ve been saying since the start. But in a bolder, more confident way. Like great wines, wine lovers come from everywhere and every age group. We now have a brand that speaks to them all,” says CEO of Laithwaites, David Gates.

Visually, through bright colours, and verbally, the new identity speaks to Laithwaites’ love of wine and the world around it enabling the brand to engage more readily with a much wider demographic. The new Laithwaites brand promise, ‘Your compass to a world of wine adventure’   invites all wine lovers on a journey, regardless of experience or knowledge. 

The motto underpinning the new brand stem from a simple, down-to-earth truth: Laithwaites are wine nuts, not wine snobs and will always strive to for a more inclusive, less elitist world of wine. As such the visual identity leads with human and hand-crafted touches. Block printed type, iconography, handwriting and whimsical illustrations recall well-travelled wine cases and the early sketches of the founder, Tony Laithwaite. Recreated in bold caps, with new brand colours and no apostrophe, the logomark aims to be a much clearer signpost for the inclusive and modern business they are today.

“Staying true to the roots and personality of the business, we created something that – while very different from where they were – is all about them. Full of colour, warmth, humour, mischief and love, this rebrand is what decades of wine adventure looks and feels like,” says David Palmer, executive creative director at LOVE.