Case Study
Rebranding an iconic Danish silversmith to recapture its royal craftsmanship heritage across branding, packaging, and advertising.

Scope of Work
Brand DNA
Brand Identity
Guidelines
Packaging
Global Advertising Campaign
Website Design & Content

Brand DNA

With a goal of bringing the heritage of the brand back for Georg Jensen, we started by going back through the 100+ year archive located in Copenhagen. In the time that I spent there, it became clear the things that have stayed consistent with the brand over the century it existed as well as how much the country & culture of it's founding influenced the house. The book became a celebration of craftsmanship, collaboration and the design ideals. It was the first step to ensure an aligned vision between ourselves and the client.

Brand Identity

One of the other things I discovered in the Jensen archive was the original plaques that graced the outside of the GJ stores from the early 19th Century. Not only did it have the royal crown bestowed upon companies producing for the royal family, but each sign, like all of the product, was hand crafted by the silversmiths. It seeemed to be the perfect symbol of everything the company was hoping to recapture. 

I partnered with photographers and renderers to create a logo mark that maintained as much of the early plaque dimensionality. I updated to the modern typography the brand was currently using and added both the royal warrant and founding year to the logo. We made versions for both embossed and flat uses as well as for different scales.

 In addition to the logo, we crafted a custom slate grey color that became the signifier for the house. We also created an extensive brand and design guideline that defined graphic design and typography for the house and ensured the consistency of the brand mark and all designs globally.

Packaging Program

We did an extensive packaging explore for Georg Jensen that resulted in new shopping bag designs as well as cases and boxes that housed all of the silver and stainless steel lines of home goods and jewelry. As a global company, the program had to solve for multiple languages and distribution channels. And we even went as far as creating a custom paper texture for the house embracing the hand-hammered pattern from the silver craftsmen. In addition, we also created packaging system guidelines to account for future expansion of the line.

Brand Campaign

For the house’s first campaign embracing the heritage and royalty, we found inspiration in the Danish Oscar winning film, Babette’s Feast as well as early Danish Golden Era painters who depicted extravagant still life. We crafted scenes and elaborate backstory in order to humanize the scenes and ensure the product felt elevated and warm. We partnered with Pascal Dangin to create the images and he took great care to light them to match the paintings we aspired to. The result was a campaign that not only broke through visually, but also helped the company to change perception quickly.

Credits

Created at Lipman for Georg Jensen
Agency CCO: David Lipman
Creative Lead: Ryan Jones
Campaign Photography: Pascal Dangin
Art Direction & Design: Julie Lysbo
Icon Photography: Dylan Griffin
Technical Packaging Design: Harry Lee

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