Relentless Energy

Coca-Cola’s alternative energy brand brought to life

No Half Measures

Relentless is a brand that stands for, promotes, enables and inspires an attitude that anyone who is serious about and totally committed to their creative passions will recognise: No Half Measures. This is about refusing to compromise, mindful, provocative creativity and never deviating from the path you set for yourself—no matter how hard it might be. By upholding these beliefs, Relentless remains authentic to the core, confident, pioneering, ambitious and different. No compromise. No shortcuts. No pretending.

Role

Art Director
Designer

Period

2010–15

Agency

Resistance Partners

Numerous guide documents and brand elements evolved over the 5 years I worked on the Relentless Energy account

Everything begins and ends with the product

The drinks are centralised in everything the brand does, and it’s the number one touchpoint to consumers as an introduction to the brand, along with the goal after any kind of brand immersion.

The visual of the cans dictated how the overall art direction of the entire identity looked in many areas. In previous years, the direction had been dark and niche. Although beautiful and energetic, research found that it alienated a potentially wide part of the market as it was misunderstood as alcoholic; flavouring options were vastly unclear; and it suffered from poor stand out on shelf. The updated designs we produced helped solve these issues and drive sales upwards.

Baroque meets hypermodern

As a maximalist brand in an age of minimalists, detailed illustrations were devised to communicate the core message of the brand in a visual way—the inspirational complexity of the baroque period embodies the idea of the No Half Measures attitude. The marriage of this alongside modern elements carved out a unique visual positioning for the brand which communicated directly to an alternative audience.

We re-worked the first generation illustrations towards a lighter, more colourful approach, with 5 further flavours adopting the new direction

The right type style for the right messaging

The typographic style used by RED was very much at the heart of the visual identity. Copy played a huge part in communicating the correct emotional position for the brand; emotive and inspiring messaging is key to connecting with a savvy audience who share the same ideals.

Aside from the illustrative cans, the brand is instantly recognisable by the contrasting modern condensed typography, the classic serif and hand-cut script type. The glyphs which were used as decorative elements, supported the type styles. The combination of beauty and confidence was the desired balance.

The all caps condensed sans serif became the primary typographic style as the brand evolved

Relentless had a custom serif typeface that made up particular communication designs, particularly on the packaging

I developed various, hand-cut custom script type styles that were also used across a number of touchpoints

New flavours, new illustrations

As the Relentless brand grew more popular, there was a desire to expand the product range with new flavours to keep up with some of the larger energy brands. This meant creating new illustrations based on the existing style we had re-worked from previous designs. I produced illustrations for 3 out of 5 second generation flavours: Lemon Ice, Mango Ultra and Apple & Kiwi.

Lemon Ice was RED's second new flavour since launching the initial product line

Mango Ultra was REDs first foray into flavoured sugar free energy drinks, after the ‘Origin Ultra’ flavour

The majority of the photographic assets for the Apple & Kiwi design were obtained on a field trip to Rome

RED: Relentless Editions

As RED actively participated in alternative music, sport and culture by sponsoring and supporting artists and athletes, producing equipment such as snowboards, merchandise and guitars was an ongoing project. This was a key area that the identity could flourish and the creative side knew no bounds—there was less stakeholder input as we were creating desirable things for a smaller sector of the market that wanted their stuff in a specific, non-corporate way.

The ‘Incarnate’ snowboard was the first in the line of Relentless Editions sports boards

Two guitar designs to coincide with the launch of two new flavours: Origin Ultra and Cherry

Dozens of apparel designs were produced for events and promotions, as well as for RED sponsored athletes and artists

Event design & branding

Relentless sponsored events such as Leeds & Reading Festival, the Kerrang! Awards and Boardmasters, whilst hosting their own events including Relentless Live and Here to be Heard. I led multiple design efforts for these events and directed designers to produce various promotions.

Between event branding, promotions, venue dressing and actual stage design, a lot of my duties centered around event design