Overlooking Bold Street, one of Liverpool’s most famous creative locations, you’ll find the headquarters of Uniform, a buzzing hub of innovation.
Uniform is a brand design agency and visualisation studio that’s been in our city for over two decades.
The Liverpool office houses 67 employees from 10 countries, as well as a climbing wall and an AI mood-reading radio.
Over the years, the firm, which also has an office in Shoreditch, has worked on a number of massive projects with global brands - designing footballs, sushi machines, coinage and much more.
It aims to help brands embrace change and navigate the future - “by connecting the dots between human behaviour, creativity and technology”.
This month, the business revealed it was part of the collaborative team who developed ‘Shots’, the latest juice range from Innocent drinks - creating the product identity and packaging.
The new collection that rolled out in March to 海角视频 shops is a variety of healthy juice shots which claims to have maximum impact both on the shelf and in taste.
The range extends Innocent’s premium juice selection, and is an evolution from the original smoothies that launched the successful brand.
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Amid a rise in health-consciousness and with the wellness industry booming, people are seeking out drinks with functional benefits.
Uniform said the innovative new product range is intended to promote the health benefits of daily juice drinking, and will appeal to an audience who want convenient, high-quality healthy products.
In order to deliver a stand-out product identity and packaging design which is small yet impactful, Uniform said it conducted in-depth research and development phases, exploring the dimensions of the new bottle shape and design, the labels and a variety of packaging that sits on shelf.
This has also allowed the bottle to be 100% recyclable, often an issue in the category.
Uniform’s creative lead, Richard Pay, said: “In a hectic market, it’s becoming harder for brands to really stand out. In order to differentiate, we focused our design on effect and intensity where competitors have focused on ingredients.
“We have worked hard to ensure that despite challenging restrictions, we created a product that stands out on shelf.”
Joe Spence, innovation lead at Innocent drinks, said: “It was a really tough brief – how to communicate as much as we have on a brand new proposition but on such a small area.
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“Uniform have come up with something that has a powerful impact on the shelf and feels new and fresh for shoppers.
“Due to our recyclability plans, the bottle had to fit strict sizing criteria in order for them not to be lost in the recycling process.
“Uniform’s creative thinking and innovative ways of working have ensured that the design was not impacted due to the bottle constraints.“
Mr Pay added: “Amid a rise in health-consciousness and with the wellness industry booming, people are seeking out drinks with functional benefits.
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“Innocent, known for healthy and tasty drinks, wanted to move into the juice shots category. But to do so came challenges - the smaller the bottle, the harder it is to recycle.
“If it’s too small it will slip through the gaps during the recycling process, which was against their recyclability plans.”
It’s not the first collaboration between Innocent and Uniform, as Mr Pay explained.
“Having worked with Innocent on Refreshers earlier in the year, they knew that as a company we pride ourselves on being innovative.
“We always look forward and create new ways of exploring.
“They challenged us with a seemingly impossible task - to create a new shot product that would fit strict sizing criteria in order for the bottles to be recyclable, whilst still being small enough to be considered a shot.
“Not only that, but we needed to ensure that the small labels and packaging stood out on the shelf.
“Our creative thinking mixed with packaging expertise meant that we were able to create a bottle and product identity that made an impact in supermarkets, but not on the planet.”
Uniform: how it all began
Uniform’s journey began back in 1998.
It was a brainchild of three John Moores University product design graduates: Nick Howe, Nick Bentley and Pete Thomas, who launched in a small city centre office - not far from the current Bold Street HQ.
Mr Howe said the three decided against leaving Liverpool as they saw opportunities in the city with the ongoing regeneration and a “great energy”.
Jobs-wise, no vacancies piqued the trio’s interest, so they took to creating their own business, with the aim of leading groundbreaking projects.
Safe to say - they saw some resounding early success.
Mr Howe told BusinessLive : “We wanted to design furniture and products, but we soon transitioned into interior design, broader creativity and visualisation.
“In the early days we designed Japanese restaurants and nightclubs - one of which won Mixmag's club interior of the year.
“We created the world's first tabletop warm sake dispenser for Simon Woodroofe at his fledgeling Yo Sushi!, and we even designed our own furniture.
“In 2001, we were in Design Week's 'Ones to Watch' – a lofty achievement we were all proud of after just two years in business.”
Two decades on, and Uniform has evolved to now offer an extensive range of services incorporating everything from helping businesses with strategy to VR development to creating customer experiences through video and various other methods.
Describing itself as a brand and design agency and visualisation studio, it works across a range of sectors from property and architecture, to FMCG and sports, education and specifiers - “defining brands for the future”.
Six projects and clients in Uniform’s portfolio:
Bleacher Report
To build upon their global audience and following, sports content provider Bleacher Report Football wanted to produce and deliver premium storytelling content, particularly around the UEFA Champions League.
Over the last two years, Uniform worked with Bleacher Report to produce a series of films highlighting the power of sports culture through the unexpected stories of unconventional characters, to reveal fan voices that would otherwise have gone untold.
The films followed supporters from around the world, presented their love of the game, how far they’ll follow their favourite players and the lengths they go to to support their team.
Ideal Standard
Bathroom ware and plumbing fixture manufacturers Ideal Standard chose Uniform due to its “strong track record” of brand transformation initiatives with a range of manufacturers.
A collaboration between the two saw a new strategy for Ideal Standard built on heritage and re-establishing the company’s design credentials, which had “become unaligned to a clear brand direction”.
A clear purpose and unifying idea, alongside aligned messaging and a coherent look and feel, now underpins a portfolio of brands that are now better connected, Uniform said.
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Mitre
Uniform has worked with sports equipment giant Mitre on a number of occasions, including to collaborate on the football that was launched during this season’s FA Cup.
The “most technically advanced ball on the market”, it came after 12 months of work with Mitre.
Other projects include collaborations with Disney and Marvel to engage with the younger market too, taking superheros and transforming them into football forms.
Fever Tree
Uniform created a film for tonic water brand Fever Tree - said to be the most popular drink of its type in the world.
The video documented the journey of founders Charles Rolls and Tim Warrilow and how they came to head up the £4bn tonic water empire.
Uniform said Fever Tree is “more like a movement, and the brand is already raising customer expectations of other mixers like cola, ginger beer, and herbal tonics”.
Primark
The firm worked with discount clothes retailer Primark on their ‘New Fashioned Christmas’ campaign in 2017, which featured a unicorn-themed experiential campaign.
Royal Mint
Royal Mint is another organisation with which Uniform has done extensive work. Among the projects are commemorative 50p pieces for the World War I centenary and the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
As well as client work, Uniform’s in-house creative technology team has also worked on self-initiated projects.
Inventions range from Solo, a facial recognition radio, to Scout - a data tracker that monitors other smart devices such as phones and speakers to check for unusual activity.
Uniform said the team works “to address problems with solutions that surprise and delight” and that there’s always a new project in the works, and new technology to hack.
So what plans does the firm have for the future, and is there optimism for further huge projects?
Mr Howe said: “At over 20 years old, we’re officially an established business now, but we won't ever stand still.
“If you change your business 1% a week you've got a whole new business every two years, and that attitude pretty much sums up Uniform and its success to date.
“We’re ambitious, we’re constantly evolving, moving with the market, staying aligned to our changing clients needs and responding to changes in consumer behaviour.
“The world is changing all the time but the biggest challenge businesses face today is the pace of that change.
“We’re here to help brands adapt and compete as they themselves need to respond rapidly to consumers needs, new technologies and market disruption.
“Through design thinking and creativity, grounded in a deep understanding of human behaviour we help our clients thrive through the good times and the bad.
“Right now our clients are partnering with Uniform, to launch new products, grow their market share and reposition their brands for success.
“We're currently looking to the future, to understand what many companies will need and how we can use design thinking and creativity to help them thrive in an ever-changing world.”