Building a brand identity for a solar energy company
What a solar and battery-storage identity has to survive, from a warranty sticker to a shipping container, drawn from our work for Joule Power in Vietnam.
Insights · BFS Studio, Ho Chi Minh City
Notes from the work
Case studies show what we made. These are the parts that do not fit in a case study: timelines, trade-offs, the things that go wrong at the printer. Written for people who have to make the same decisions.
All insights
What to do with the zodiac animal on a Lunar New Year pack
A tiger drawn as heraldry and a dragon built from scales: two Tết packs that handled the zodiac animal, and what the Year of the Goat in 2027 asks.
Vietnamese lacquer and eggshell inlay in packaging design
Why Vietnamese lacquer and eggshell inlay give a gift pack something print cannot, and what a brand has to settle before it commissions one.
How to design a spirits bottle label for Vietnam
What to settle before a spirits bottle label goes to print in Vietnam, from hierarchy and range to finishes, Vietnamese copy and the first press run.
What makes a good brand mascot character
What to check in a brand mascot before you approve it: its job, proportions, turnaround, pose set and rules, from our 3D mascot work in Vietnam.
What to ask a creative agency in Vietnam before you hire them
Questions worth asking a branding or packaging agency in Ho Chi Minh City before you sign, from who does the work to what results you can report.
What drives the cost of branding, packaging or mascot design in Vietnam
What moves the price of branding, packaging and 3D mascot work in Vietnam: scope, number of versions, materials, production, approvals and timing.
How to design alcohol packaging that stands out on shelves
Standing out is not volume. Five tests we run on spirits and wine packs before the artwork locks: distance, neighbours, the row, the set and the light.
How spirits packaging in Vietnam differs from the same brand abroad
Same bottle, different job. Five things a spirits pack has to do in Vietnam that it never asks of the brand at home — gifting, the shelf, two rule books.
Product photography for spirits: the label is the light source
One rule beats a mood board. How a spirits product shoot in Vietnam is built: key light on the label, a mirror floor, a set list short enough to finish.
Limited edition for Lunar New Year: when to change the pack, not the box
When a spirits brand should change the primary pack for Tết instead of adding a gift box — cost, approval chain, and what happens when artwork slips.
Key visual for home appliances: one platform idea, four platforms
A spec sheet will not stop a feed. How one platform idea for a home-appliance brand in Vietnam survives being cut into thirty pieces across four platforms.
Healthcare branding in Vietnam: trust before style
Healthcare branding in Vietnam is judged by pharmacists, doctors and regulators before consumers. What has to be true on a lab report, a shelf and a feed.
Coffee packaging design in Vietnam: what the shelf rewards
Retail bag, gift box, export carton — three formats, three different jobs. What a Vietnamese coffee brand has to prove on pack, and in what order.
Wine gift packaging for Tết without the clichés
Two wine houses, two ways to say Tết without red-and-blossom: one turned its own punctuation into the wish, the other let the label do the lighting.
VAP, GWP, limited edition: a glossary for spirits marketers in Vietnam
What each gifting format actually costs in time and risk, when to use which, and the questions to settle before a designer opens a file.
Tết packaging for spirits: the nine-month playbook
When to start, what tier to build, rigid or carton, and what Vietnamese printers actually need — from six Tết seasons of spirits packaging.
Social for global brands entering Vietnam: what the numbers said
Two global brands ran always-on social in Vietnam under real constraints: OTC rules and a spec-sheet category. What the reporting actually showed.
Rebranding a biotech company: one mark, two audiences
A biotech mark must satisfy a clinician and reassure a patient at once. How the Gene Solutions identity does both without softening the science.
How six spirits houses localise for Lunar New Year
A global brand book does not bend for a local season. Six Tết seasons for Pernod Ricard houses, and the pattern that holds across all of them.
Naming and identity for a real-estate address
A shophouse row cannot be photographed into desire. How a name and one flat shape gave An Cựu Galleria an address instead of a listing.
Lacquer and eggshell: six months, 200 shells, one box
How a coffee gift box was drawn for an artisan rather than a print machine — and what that changes about structure, colour and the schedule.
Tết packaging built from the brand’s own geometry
The default Tết vocabulary — red, gold, blossom, zodiac — makes every brand look alike. Three packs that found the festivity already inside the identity.
Coffee brand identity in Vietnam: from Hamlet 10 to shelf
Vietnam exports coffee by the tonne and anonymously. What it takes for a producer brand to become legible: provenance, science and craft, in one system.
From clay to cape: building a 3D brand mascot that lasts
A mascot is not a render, it is a system. What it takes for a 3D brand character to still be working five years after the launch campaign ended.
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