Panhandle: built for real heat.

Cast-iron cookware. Amazon has 700,000+ registered brands, and most cast iron there looks the same: rustic type and generic listing graphics, so it competes on price. Panhandle moves up by looking like what it is: modern, hot and built to last, legible at thumbnail size and handsome on a premium shelf.

Project: Self-initiated
Sector: Cast-iron cookware
Market: US, Amazon and Walmart
Brand book: 61 pages

Panhandle is a fictional brand we created to show our complete process. The market research is real; no client, results or testimonials are implied. Scenes like the one above are concept applications of the final logo files, not photographs of real placements.

The brief

Positioning before pixels.

For home cooks who buy once, Panhandle is the cast-iron brand built for real heat, with a mark cast into every handle, because good iron should be recognisable at a glance.

Tagline: Built for real heat.

The idea

A skillet from above, heat rings glowing inside. Built for real heat.

Panhandle graphic language page — Graphic language, from the brand book

Creative directions

8 directions, one choice.

After research and strategy, we explored 8 distinct directions as concept boards. The chosen direction was then redrawn by hand as a precise vector system. Shown: the chosen direction and three alternatives.