Ogoori: Impact objects turning the tides on ocean plastic

Meet Ogoori, the innovative Norwegian brand dedicated to tackling the big questions around ocean plastics: how to efficiently collect ocean waste, advocate for eco-friendly manufacturing, and promote a circular economy. Named after Oguri Jukichi, the Japanese fisherman lost at sea for 484 days, Oogori helps collect what was once lost adrift at sea and give it a new purpose. Ogoori makes it easier for businesses to contribute to ocean cleanup and measure their impact, while transforming ocean waste into premium, sustainable products, made with traceable recycled ocean plastic. First started in 2019, Ogoori's has evolved to include a full-circle closed loop business strategy that aims to help collect and contain ocean plastics through their two mainproducts: Ogoori Nature and Ogoori Loops. Our task was to help rebrand Ogoori, create a clear visual system for storytelling (with an edgy twist not common amongst eco-companies) help explain this business model and different products.

Ogoori Nature allows businesses to make and measure their positive impact through beach cleanup— collecting data on wildlife and surrounding ecosystems, as well as quantifying amounts of garbage gathered and plastic that’s recycled.

Ogoori Loops then turns this ocean plastic into traceable quality material—where the impact data and stories from beach cleanups accompany the finished product.

One of the biggest challenges the client had was trying to tell their story, and differentiate between their different products (Ogoori Nature and Ogoori Loops) which have very different audiences. It was important for us to develop a concept that was focused and simple, yet fully flexible and versatile. The concept we developed allowed us to so easily communicate complex messaging without the use of words—whether through animation showing how material is up-cycled again and again from product to product, or the simple visual narrative of collecting ocean plastics. However, typography obviously plays a crucial role in the branding, but also carries the weight of being able to tell a brands full story through custom typography. As an additional design decisions, we allowed the branding system to color code Ogoori's products to help differentiate the communication to their different audiences. Each product has a clear palette, which can also be used together for the mother brand.

The concept for the visual identity focuses on one strong message: capturing and containing ocean plastics. Pulling inspiration from plastics shards and microplastics often found amongst the sands, these plastic forms become a visual narrative for Ogoori’s mission, services and products. The identity’s true workhorse is the custom display type. Developed together with Colophon, we created a custom version of Mabry that literally visualizes Ogoori’s core mission to capture and contain ocean plastics. The font has a series of custom glyphs, each containing a plastic shard, that vary in shape and form through contextual alternates. In addition, these same forms are used as graphic devices in a series of animations and illustrations to help communicate Ogoori’s mission and core products.

Ogoori is currently 6 employees, and is still in their startup phase, funded largely by research grants and other public investment initiatives. This meant that the branding system and identity had to be extremely easy to use by the client. With varying design backgrounds and skillsets (one employee is a product designer, who together with their marketing manager, has basic knowledge of the Adobe suite) the identity system had to be extremely easy to use, with clear guidelines and templates.