Hello Boston, meet New Zealand
Naming, Branding, Launch, Packaging, Experiential, Interiors, Signage, Animation, Social, Photography, & Apparel
Building the Far Out Brand Identity
During a trip to New Zealand, Far Out’s founders were met with the joy of trying a frozen treat that left them wanting more—real fruit ice cream. From there, they decided they wanted to bring that tasty New Zealand tradition back to the US starting with their pop up location in Hingham, MA. Their mission is to use natural ingredients to capture the taste they fell in love with in New Zealand and share it with the masses. The team came to us to conceptualize the entire brand from naming to visual identity and everything in between.
Brand Identity & Strategy
Copywriting
Illustration
Animation
Signage
Corporate Materials
Client: Far Out
The challenge here was decluttering a potentially complex brand story. It was important to the Far Out team to emphasize the dessert’s New Zealand origins, and speak to the fact that it’s made with real fruit, while making the aesthetic feel both fun and elevated. This number of elements can confuse your audience, especially when the product is unlike anything many of them have seen. We had to be very intentional with our approach to ensure it landed without leaving people feeling disoriented.
We began by better understanding New Zealand and its traditions. What we discovered was a vibrant natural landscape and we knew we could borrow these pops of color to build a fun visual identity and evoke the colors of the fresh fruit found in the ice creams themselves. We looked at New Zealand’s wildlife from all angles to consider what elements would be relatable to the US market and what could be incorporated into the in-store experience to make it engaging and shareable on social media.
We knew the name should be inspired by the ice cream’s New Zealand origins. After an extensive exercise we landed on “Far Out”, alluding to how far away the ice cream’s homeland is from here, while playing on a fun expression. During that exercise, we had a few favorites that we didn’t want to lose, including Enzy who ended up being the Far Out mascot, and Kookaberry, their signature flavor.
Enzy ended up being an important outcome of the brand exercise, as a mascot, logo, and iconic visual people look forward to seeing both on the walls of the store and across the packaging. Enzy’s form was inspired by New Zealand’s national bird, the kiwi. He’s depicted getting up to antics with visuals of the fruit that go into each ice cream flavor.
It was important to the Far Out team to emphasize the dessert’s New Zealand origins, and speak to the fact that it’s made with real fruit, while making the aesthetic feel both fun and elevated.
We didn’t want the brand to take itself too seriously because at its core, ice cream is fun. After establishing the “Far Out” name, we knew we had to get funky with our color palette. We embrace big pops of colors found in the fruits of the vibrant New Zealand wilderness. We embraced cartoonish illustration to bring a human element to the visual identity.
“I felt that their desire to create something great was as big as mine, and we were in it together until we were all happy.”
In 2021, we won Gold in brand identity at the Broderson Awards for our work with Far Out and in 2023, we won Gold in Outdoor Advertising at the Brodersons for the mural and interior work we did at Far Out’s physical location in Brookline, MA. These accolades are exciting, but more importantly, the Far Out team felt the brand identity perfectly fit their vision for the real fruit ice cream concept. They’ve been able to use the assets produced during the exercise across all channels, showcasing a strong sense of cohesive identity that is now easily recognized in the greater Boston area.
