Staying relevant without chasing trends

Stop for a minute at the Saturday market in Ouchy. Look at what catches your eye before the smell does. The handwritten price on a crate of apricots. The stamp on a paper bag of coffee. The name on a carton of eggs. Design is already there, doing its job without asking for attention.

Staying relevant without chasing trends is one of the most demanding briefs a studio can take on. It is never only about the product. It is about habits, memory and the people around a table. A good identity tells a story larger than the thing it sells.

Before the first look

A shopper decides in less than seven seconds. In that time, colour, texture, shape and type send one message: you can trust this. Or the opposite. Packaging is more than protection. It is a promise, made in a place where everything competes at once.

To stand out, a brand needs a clear position, a few confident choices and a direction that does not change every season. Coherence is worth more than a clever idea used once.

Naming: when a word becomes a brand

Every brand starts with a name. A good one balances memory, cultural fit and how it looks on a shelf, a sign or a phone screen. It is easy to say, easy to remember, and still reads well ten years later.

A single character can carry the whole idea. An exclamation mark, a missing letter, an accent in the wrong place on purpose. Small decisions, read by everyone, every day.

Strategy: the part nobody sees

Before colour, before packaging, there are questions. Who is it for? What problem does it solve? Who else is in the room? What does it promise? This stage is the least visible and the most decisive. Many teams want to go straight to design. But design without strategy is a recipe without quantities.

A good brief fits on one page. It names one audience, one competitor and one reason to choose. Everything else follows from those three lines.

When design becomes a language

In food and drink, every visual choice already says something. Kraft paper and dark green suggest a workshop. A condensed sans on cream reads as premium. These codes exist for a reason, but they are not meant to be copied. They are meant to be understood, then used with intent.

Two local brands can sell the same thing and look nothing alike. Two audiences, two promises. Following trends is easy. Choosing the codes that fit is the work.

Taste: the rarest material

Tools are cheaper and faster than ever. Anyone can generate a logo, a pack shot or a full identity in an afternoon. What remains scarce is judgement: knowing which of a hundred options is right, and why.

Branding is less about producing and more about choosing. Giving meaning. Building something people recognise after the trend has gone.

Communication: bringing the brand to life

A good identity with no communication is a shop with the lights off. In food and drink, the shelf is no longer the only window. The menu, the delivery bag, the receipt and the phone screen all speak for the brand, often before the product is tasted.

That calls for a system: consistent templates, a clear photographic direction and a way of writing that stays the same on a poster and in a caption. The brand does not stop at the logo. It lives in every exchange between the business and the people who buy from it.

Switzerland: a market of its own

Swiss shoppers are used to high standards. They travel, they compare, they read labels in three languages. They notice when packaging was designed with care and when it was assembled from a template.

Being local, honest and close to the people you serve is not a slogan here. It is an advantage, as long as the brand makes it visible at every point of contact.

For a small producer, this often means fewer products, clearer names and one colour that can be recognised from across a market hall.

A short checklist

Can you describe the brand in one sentence without using an adjective? Does the name still work when spoken in a noisy room? Can someone recognise the packaging from five metres away? Would a new employee know how to write a menu in the brand's voice? If one answer is no, start there.

None of these questions needs a large budget. They need time, a few honest conversations and someone willing to cut what does not serve the idea.

Working with a studio

The first meeting is mostly listening. We ask about the people who buy, the people who sell and the people who make. We visit the place. We taste, touch and read what is already there.

The second meeting is about choices. Two or three directions, each with a reason. Not a menu of logos, but a set of positions the brand could take, shown on real objects.

What it changes, in practice

A strong identity helps a product stand out on the shelf. It justifies a price. It gives retailers a reason to stock it. And it turns customers into people who talk about it, because they share what reflects them.

In Switzerland, where the market is small and attentive, that difference is often what separates a good product from a brand people keep coming back to.