Edible

The challenge:
With 28 food allergies, Edible’s founder, Alex De Sousa, has a deeply personal understanding of the challenges faced by food-sensitive customers, trying to find safe options on a menu.

Edible is the menu builder and filter app that takes the guesswork out of sharing allergen and dietary information, making eating out a safer, more inclusive experience.

The brand’s mission — to make the world more Edible — called for a gutsy voice and a visual style you can sink your teeth into.

The approach:
With a gooey, hand-lettered wordmark, doughy typography, and appetising colour palette, Edible’s visual identity is designed to live up to its name.

We provided a platform for people with food allergies, intolerances and dietary needs, to share their experiences and frustrations — ensuring the brand’s identity makes them feel heard and understood.

Teaming up with illustrator Ant Gardner, we created a mouthy mascot called Nom, who personifies the brand’s promise to speak up for policy change in allergen labelling. There’s a foot-tapping, fist-shaking, or fork-wielding Nom for every brand attitude.

To help educate people about the allergens flagged by Edible’s menu filter, we created a series of illustrated stickers to bid these troublesome ingredients farewell — adding a touch of sassy humour to the identity.

The photography features people enthusiastically tucking into restaurant and takeaway food. A mouthful of noodles or a pizza slice in greasy hands signals that, with Edible, customers can eat out with confidence. With Edible’s focus on ingredients, macro photography was a fitting choice to provide pops of colour and textured backgrounds.

The brand’s verbal identity rallies the community to join the food allergen fight with a voice that’s bold, full of beans, and a little spicy.

The result:
Edible’s brand identity has helped propel this small, unknown start-up into the spotlight, with recent features on STV and BBC Radio Scotland. Alex credits this to the identity:

“Starting out, we had zero presence or credibility — something that’s hard to earn but essential for growth. The brand identity has given us just that. It’s why our community and food businesses are taking us seriously. We now have the language and confidence to lead the conversation on food allergen labelling”.