Post by Core77

Taking the 2026 Professional honors in Branding & Identity is Cadence Brand Identity from View Source, with the design team comprised of Andrew Rutledge, Annie Chen, Dan Zafian, Edward Tsao and Marni Kane. Cadence is an endurance athlete hydration brand built around a clear, differentiating focus on salt, and this brand identity project created a cohesive visual system to support its expansion from a single canned electrolyte drink into a full line of products including running gels, sachets, and limited edition flavors. Cadence captured the jury's attention through its masterfully restrained approach, proving that clarity is the ultimate sophistication. Its clean, minimal brand system delivers maximum impact with a beautifully quiet confidence. Earning the Student honors in Branding & Identity is ARCHIPELAGO, a project by Liu Jiayi out of the Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication. ARCHIPELAGO is a brand and visual system that explores how individuals form and embrace social roles under the gaze of others—using the metaphor "every man is an island" to construct a visual archipelago that illustrates the relationship between individual independence and connection to the world. Rooted in the designer's personal experience with externally assigned identity, the project employs visual design and exhibitions to examine how people internalize projected roles and rediscover themselves within them. Branding & Identity Award Honorees * Winner Cadence Brand Identity By View Source * Student Winner ARCHIPELAGO By jiayi liu * Student Runner Up Green Tile Social Club By Manasa Sundaram * Student Notable Neopoética Festival By Manasa Sundaram * Student Notable de Young Museum By Gabriel Juarez The jury for Branding & Identity was led by Inês Ayer, Creative Manager at Google DeepMind. Joining them were Alex Naghavi, Creative Director at Block; Annika Hansteen-Izora, Creative Director at School of Softness; Lais Ikoma, Creative Director and Graphic Designer at Polar, Ltda.; and Lukas Bentel, Chief Creative Officer at MSCHF. The 2026 Branding & Identity category celebrates the visual systems that define how a product, company, or organization presents itself to the world, spanning logos, custom typefaces, full-scale rebrands, and ad campaigns that make an entity's values immediately legible. 2026 Core77 Design Awards All Honorees: Apps & Platforms | Built Environment | Branding & Identity | Commercial & Industrial Equipment | Consumer Technology | Design for Social Impact | Emerging Technologies | Furniture & Lighting | Home & Living | Interaction | Lifestyle Accessories | Medical & Healthcare | Packaging | Speculative Design | Sports & Outdoor |… https://lnkd.in/gpcXXyQB #DesignAwards #Branding #IdentityDesign #VisualIdentity #GraphicDesign