Sep 13, 2026
The Month In Rebrands: Everyone Looked Backwards
A month of rebrands surfaced in the design press, and the interesting thing is not that any one of them is good. It is that almost none of them started by inventing something.
Tecate went into its own archive. Ytri took its name off a map. The pattern is worth noticing, because it runs against what most people think a rebrand is for.
Perspective
Rebrands
Analysis
Tecate Went Into The Archive
Bulletproof’s redesign for the Mexican beer brand resurrects the ingot — a motif from the brand’s own past — rather than replacing it with something new.
Tecate was born in 1944 and spent decades as a symbol of Mexican pride, and by Bulletproof’s own account the masculine roots that once carried it had become a constraint. Culture moved, competition moved, and the brand did not.
The obvious response to that brief is reinvention — distance yourself from the thing that dated. The studio did close to the opposite. It brought back the ingot, a symbol of worth and endurance from the brand’s own history, and made it the cornerstone of the new identity. The eagle emblem was refined rather than retired. Typography and colour blocking were updated around both.
The strategic move underneath is the part worth studying. Rather than argue that Tecate is no longer a working person’s beer, Bulletproof anchored the whole thing in the idea that Mexico works harder than anyone and Tecate has always rewarded that. The positioning did not change. The way it is expressed did.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. A brand that abandons its position to look current has to rebuild recognition from zero and hope the new audience arrives before the old one leaves. A brand that keeps its position and modernises its expression gets to keep everything it had already earned.
The archive is the most underused research material in this discipline. Most brands with any age have already solved their own distinctiveness problem once — the asset is sitting in a 1970s catalogue, unused, because someone decided at some point that it looked old.
Ytri Took Its Name From The Map
Bielke&Yang’s work for a 38-room island retreat began with naming, and the name came from the geography rather than from a brainstorm.
Ytri sits on Træna, roughly 60km off Norway’s Helgeland coast. The name is Old Norse for the outermost point — which describes the location literally and the experience of being there at the same time. It is the rare case of a name that is both accurate and evocative without straining for either.
The scope tells you how the studio worked: strategy, naming, identity, design system, website and signage, as one engagement. Naming did not arrive after the positioning as a labelling exercise. It came out of the same research that produced everything else.
The system follows from the place rather than from a mood board. The palette sets a dark reddish brown — the warmth of the hotel interior — against the ice-cold Arctic sea and a windswept sky. A custom typeface, Ytri Flare, drawn by Bobby Tannam, gives softened curves that deliberately contrast the hard edges of the logo. Robust and warm, weather-beaten and inviting: the contrasts of the island itself.
There is a lesson here for anyone naming something. The strongest names are usually found rather than generated. They come from the geography, the material, the founder’s language, the thing the business actually does — somewhere with a fact underneath it. Invented names have to be given meaning through years of expensive repetition. Found names arrive with meaning already attached.
It also explains why naming is priced the way it is. The work is not producing a list of candidates. It is knowing which one is load-bearing.
What They Share
Three studios, three categories, three different problems — and the same instinct in each case: find the thing that is already true, then design around it.
AJ Bell’s new identity, which reached its platform in early September, does the same thing in the least glamorous category on this list. The mark now carries a bell — the company’s own name, made visible — supported by a new typeface and palette in service of a broader campaign. It is not a clever solution. It is an obvious one that nobody had bothered to execute properly, which is frequently where the best answer is hiding.
The same month brought identities for Spoak by Nimble, Hotel Willo by Rethink, The Kithmore by Crown Creative, a WNBA Finals mark by Sunday Afternoon, and a motion and graphic system for Brunch Electronik by THRU. A busy month by any measure, and a reminder that the volume of this work has not slowed.
But the through-line in the ones with the clearest thinking is recovery, not reinvention. Tecate recovered a motif. Ytri recovered a word. AJ Bell recovered its own name. In each case the research phase produced an asset that already existed rather than a brief to make something up.
This is the opposite of how rebrands are usually discussed. The public conversation treats them as reveals — a before and an after, judged on whether the after looks better. That framing misses where the value actually sits, which is almost always in a decision made weeks before anyone opened a design file.
It is also the most practical argument I can make for spending money on discovery. The studios above did not arrive at an ingot, an Old Norse word and a bell by being more imaginative than their competitors. They arrived there by looking harder at material that was already in front of them, and by being willing to conclude that the answer was old.
If you are considering a rebrand, the first question is not what it should look like. It is what you already own that you have stopped using — and whether the reason you stopped was ever a good one.
Images: Tecate identity and packaging by Bulletproof. Ytri naming, identity and design system by Bielke&Yang, with the Ytri Flare typeface by Bobby Tannam. Both reproduced from the studios’ own published project pages for the purpose of commentary; all rights remain with the studios and their clients.
FAQ
01
How does your brand design process work?
02
What's included in your branding packages?
03
Do you also design websites?
04
How long does branding take?
05
What do I need to prepare?
06
Do you offer ongoing support?
07
Can I make tweaks after delivery?
08
How do you ensure my brand stands out from competitors?
Let's Work Together
©2025
Contact Now
Book a discovery call
Let’s create something amazing together! Reach out I’d love to hear about your project and ideas.
or send a message
Sep 13, 2026
The Month In Rebrands: Everyone Looked Backwards
A month of rebrands surfaced in the design press, and the interesting thing is not that any one of them is good. It is that almost none of them started by inventing something.
Tecate went into its own archive. Ytri took its name off a map. The pattern is worth noticing, because it runs against what most people think a rebrand is for.
Perspective
Rebrands
Analysis
Tecate Went Into The Archive
Bulletproof’s redesign for the Mexican beer brand resurrects the ingot — a motif from the brand’s own past — rather than replacing it with something new.
Tecate was born in 1944 and spent decades as a symbol of Mexican pride, and by Bulletproof’s own account the masculine roots that once carried it had become a constraint. Culture moved, competition moved, and the brand did not.
The obvious response to that brief is reinvention — distance yourself from the thing that dated. The studio did close to the opposite. It brought back the ingot, a symbol of worth and endurance from the brand’s own history, and made it the cornerstone of the new identity. The eagle emblem was refined rather than retired. Typography and colour blocking were updated around both.
The strategic move underneath is the part worth studying. Rather than argue that Tecate is no longer a working person’s beer, Bulletproof anchored the whole thing in the idea that Mexico works harder than anyone and Tecate has always rewarded that. The positioning did not change. The way it is expressed did.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. A brand that abandons its position to look current has to rebuild recognition from zero and hope the new audience arrives before the old one leaves. A brand that keeps its position and modernises its expression gets to keep everything it had already earned.
The archive is the most underused research material in this discipline. Most brands with any age have already solved their own distinctiveness problem once — the asset is sitting in a 1970s catalogue, unused, because someone decided at some point that it looked old.
Ytri Took Its Name From The Map
Bielke&Yang’s work for a 38-room island retreat began with naming, and the name came from the geography rather than from a brainstorm.
Ytri sits on Træna, roughly 60km off Norway’s Helgeland coast. The name is Old Norse for the outermost point — which describes the location literally and the experience of being there at the same time. It is the rare case of a name that is both accurate and evocative without straining for either.
The scope tells you how the studio worked: strategy, naming, identity, design system, website and signage, as one engagement. Naming did not arrive after the positioning as a labelling exercise. It came out of the same research that produced everything else.
The system follows from the place rather than from a mood board. The palette sets a dark reddish brown — the warmth of the hotel interior — against the ice-cold Arctic sea and a windswept sky. A custom typeface, Ytri Flare, drawn by Bobby Tannam, gives softened curves that deliberately contrast the hard edges of the logo. Robust and warm, weather-beaten and inviting: the contrasts of the island itself.
There is a lesson here for anyone naming something. The strongest names are usually found rather than generated. They come from the geography, the material, the founder’s language, the thing the business actually does — somewhere with a fact underneath it. Invented names have to be given meaning through years of expensive repetition. Found names arrive with meaning already attached.
It also explains why naming is priced the way it is. The work is not producing a list of candidates. It is knowing which one is load-bearing.
What They Share
Three studios, three categories, three different problems — and the same instinct in each case: find the thing that is already true, then design around it.
AJ Bell’s new identity, which reached its platform in early September, does the same thing in the least glamorous category on this list. The mark now carries a bell — the company’s own name, made visible — supported by a new typeface and palette in service of a broader campaign. It is not a clever solution. It is an obvious one that nobody had bothered to execute properly, which is frequently where the best answer is hiding.
The same month brought identities for Spoak by Nimble, Hotel Willo by Rethink, The Kithmore by Crown Creative, a WNBA Finals mark by Sunday Afternoon, and a motion and graphic system for Brunch Electronik by THRU. A busy month by any measure, and a reminder that the volume of this work has not slowed.
But the through-line in the ones with the clearest thinking is recovery, not reinvention. Tecate recovered a motif. Ytri recovered a word. AJ Bell recovered its own name. In each case the research phase produced an asset that already existed rather than a brief to make something up.
This is the opposite of how rebrands are usually discussed. The public conversation treats them as reveals — a before and an after, judged on whether the after looks better. That framing misses where the value actually sits, which is almost always in a decision made weeks before anyone opened a design file.
It is also the most practical argument I can make for spending money on discovery. The studios above did not arrive at an ingot, an Old Norse word and a bell by being more imaginative than their competitors. They arrived there by looking harder at material that was already in front of them, and by being willing to conclude that the answer was old.
If you are considering a rebrand, the first question is not what it should look like. It is what you already own that you have stopped using — and whether the reason you stopped was ever a good one.
Images: Tecate identity and packaging by Bulletproof. Ytri naming, identity and design system by Bielke&Yang, with the Ytri Flare typeface by Bobby Tannam. Both reproduced from the studios’ own published project pages for the purpose of commentary; all rights remain with the studios and their clients.
FAQ
01
How does your brand design process work?
02
What's included in your branding packages?
03
Do you also design websites?
04
How long does branding take?
05
What do I need to prepare?
06
Do you offer ongoing support?
07
Can I make tweaks after delivery?
08
How do you ensure my brand stands out from competitors?
Let's Work Together
©2025
Contact Now
Book a discovery call
Let’s create something amazing together! Reach out I’d love to hear about your project and ideas.
or send a message
Sep 13, 2026
The Month In Rebrands: Everyone Looked Backwards
A month of rebrands surfaced in the design press, and the interesting thing is not that any one of them is good. It is that almost none of them started by inventing something.
Tecate went into its own archive. Ytri took its name off a map. The pattern is worth noticing, because it runs against what most people think a rebrand is for.
Perspective
Rebrands
Analysis
Tecate Went Into The Archive
Bulletproof’s redesign for the Mexican beer brand resurrects the ingot — a motif from the brand’s own past — rather than replacing it with something new.
Tecate was born in 1944 and spent decades as a symbol of Mexican pride, and by Bulletproof’s own account the masculine roots that once carried it had become a constraint. Culture moved, competition moved, and the brand did not.
The obvious response to that brief is reinvention — distance yourself from the thing that dated. The studio did close to the opposite. It brought back the ingot, a symbol of worth and endurance from the brand’s own history, and made it the cornerstone of the new identity. The eagle emblem was refined rather than retired. Typography and colour blocking were updated around both.
The strategic move underneath is the part worth studying. Rather than argue that Tecate is no longer a working person’s beer, Bulletproof anchored the whole thing in the idea that Mexico works harder than anyone and Tecate has always rewarded that. The positioning did not change. The way it is expressed did.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. A brand that abandons its position to look current has to rebuild recognition from zero and hope the new audience arrives before the old one leaves. A brand that keeps its position and modernises its expression gets to keep everything it had already earned.
The archive is the most underused research material in this discipline. Most brands with any age have already solved their own distinctiveness problem once — the asset is sitting in a 1970s catalogue, unused, because someone decided at some point that it looked old.
Ytri Took Its Name From The Map
Bielke&Yang’s work for a 38-room island retreat began with naming, and the name came from the geography rather than from a brainstorm.
Ytri sits on Træna, roughly 60km off Norway’s Helgeland coast. The name is Old Norse for the outermost point — which describes the location literally and the experience of being there at the same time. It is the rare case of a name that is both accurate and evocative without straining for either.
The scope tells you how the studio worked: strategy, naming, identity, design system, website and signage, as one engagement. Naming did not arrive after the positioning as a labelling exercise. It came out of the same research that produced everything else.
The system follows from the place rather than from a mood board. The palette sets a dark reddish brown — the warmth of the hotel interior — against the ice-cold Arctic sea and a windswept sky. A custom typeface, Ytri Flare, drawn by Bobby Tannam, gives softened curves that deliberately contrast the hard edges of the logo. Robust and warm, weather-beaten and inviting: the contrasts of the island itself.
There is a lesson here for anyone naming something. The strongest names are usually found rather than generated. They come from the geography, the material, the founder’s language, the thing the business actually does — somewhere with a fact underneath it. Invented names have to be given meaning through years of expensive repetition. Found names arrive with meaning already attached.
It also explains why naming is priced the way it is. The work is not producing a list of candidates. It is knowing which one is load-bearing.
What They Share
Three studios, three categories, three different problems — and the same instinct in each case: find the thing that is already true, then design around it.
AJ Bell’s new identity, which reached its platform in early September, does the same thing in the least glamorous category on this list. The mark now carries a bell — the company’s own name, made visible — supported by a new typeface and palette in service of a broader campaign. It is not a clever solution. It is an obvious one that nobody had bothered to execute properly, which is frequently where the best answer is hiding.
The same month brought identities for Spoak by Nimble, Hotel Willo by Rethink, The Kithmore by Crown Creative, a WNBA Finals mark by Sunday Afternoon, and a motion and graphic system for Brunch Electronik by THRU. A busy month by any measure, and a reminder that the volume of this work has not slowed.
But the through-line in the ones with the clearest thinking is recovery, not reinvention. Tecate recovered a motif. Ytri recovered a word. AJ Bell recovered its own name. In each case the research phase produced an asset that already existed rather than a brief to make something up.
This is the opposite of how rebrands are usually discussed. The public conversation treats them as reveals — a before and an after, judged on whether the after looks better. That framing misses where the value actually sits, which is almost always in a decision made weeks before anyone opened a design file.
It is also the most practical argument I can make for spending money on discovery. The studios above did not arrive at an ingot, an Old Norse word and a bell by being more imaginative than their competitors. They arrived there by looking harder at material that was already in front of them, and by being willing to conclude that the answer was old.
If you are considering a rebrand, the first question is not what it should look like. It is what you already own that you have stopped using — and whether the reason you stopped was ever a good one.
Images: Tecate identity and packaging by Bulletproof. Ytri naming, identity and design system by Bielke&Yang, with the Ytri Flare typeface by Bobby Tannam. Both reproduced from the studios’ own published project pages for the purpose of commentary; all rights remain with the studios and their clients.
FAQ
How does your brand design process work?
What's included in your branding packages?
Do you also design websites?
How long does branding take?
What do I need to prepare?
Do you offer ongoing support?
Can I make tweaks after delivery?
How do you ensure my brand stands out from competitors?
Let's Work Together
©2025
Contact Now
Book a
discovery call
Let’s create something amazing together! Reach out I’d love to hear about your project and ideas.
or send a message