Philadelphia Nut Butter Co.
Role
Lead Designer & Art Director
Lead Designer & Art Director
Scope
Brand Strategy • Visual Identity • Packaging • Print • Out-of-home • Food Styling
Brand Strategy • Visual Identity • Packaging • Print • Out-of-home • Food Styling
Project type
Client work
Client work
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Philadelphia Nut Butter Co. was built around two things that didn’t need much explaining: nut butter + Philadelphia. The original design agency had established the logo and core color palette, but there was still plenty of room to explore what the rest of the brand could look like.
That's where I came in.
My job was to take those existing pieces and build out a more complete visual language—one that could extend across advertising, motion, ecommerce and just about anywhere else the brand needed to show up.
And because we're talking about Philly, there was no shortage of personality to work with.
The original identity gave me something solid to work with, so there wasn't much sense in starting over.
Instead, I focused on figuring out what else the brand needed. That meant expanding its typography, supporting graphics and layout approaches into something that could work consistently across different formats.
The goal was to give Philadelphia Nut Butter more room to express itself without losing what made the original identity recognizable.
Philly has never been the quiet type.
The advertising gave me an opportunity to push the brand a little further.
Philadelphia has a pretty unmistakable personality, and I wanted to bring some of that attitude into the work without turning everything into a collection of local clichés.
Bold typography, product photography and a little hometown humor became the foundation for a series of applications that could stand on their own while still feeling like part of the same brand.
A little Philly goes a long way. Too much and you start designing souvenirs.
Peanut butter should probably make you hungry.
Once the identity had enough structure, the photography could loosen things back up.
I wanted the food to feel generous, a little messy and very obviously worth eating. No tiny perfect dollops of peanut butter sitting beside three artfully placed peanuts.
Toast gets covered. Hot dogs get drizzled. The product looks like something you’d actually use rather than something too precious to touch.
That gave the brand another way to feel approachable while keeping the packaging itself relatively disciplined.
And then Philly started talking.
The campaign work is where the brand gets a little louder.
Instead of explaining the product with polished CPG language, the copy borrows the directness and humor that already feels at home in Philadelphia. Lines like “Philly Born. Philly Made.” make provenance part of the message, while “This Jawn Is Nuts.” lets the brand have some fun without turning every headline into a Philly reference.
That restraint mattered.
A little local language goes a long way. Too much and the brand starts feeling like it was designed for tourists at the airport.
More than the sum of its parts.
What started as an existing logo and color palette became something much more versatile. The expanded system gave Philadelphia Nut Butter a consistent way to show up across advertising, digital experiences and motion without losing the character of the original identity.
For me, that's what made this project interesting. I didn't need to reinvent the brand to make something new. I needed to find everything else it was capable of doing.
