OmZen is a wellness brand built on organic tea and botanicals, rooted in Eastern tradition and backed by modern science. It sits in a gap most competitors miss — brands in this space tend to look either clinical or overly traditional, rarely both credible and warm.

I built the identity from the ground up: logo, color, typography, collateral, and more. The hardest part was expressing that Eastern side without leaning on the obvious symbols, so that it reads as modern and approachable anywhere.

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We explored a few visual directions, and I hand-drew several logo concepts along the way — lotus forms, monks in meditation poses, leaves, brushstroke marks. I still like a lot of those sketches, but too many brands in this space already lean on the same imagery, and going down that route wouldn't have set OmZen apart from any of them. So we decided to focus on the name and let it speak for itself, with the graphics coming in only as an accent.

That accent is a leaf. I turned the serifs at the top of the "m" and the "n" into a leaf shape — the two letters are nearly identical shapes to start with, so the same treatment fits both. They also happen to be the letters that close "om" and "zen," which means each half of the name ends up carrying a leaf of its own.

The wordmark is set in a lowercase serif, which reads softer and more approachable, and I kept some of the hand-drawn quality in the letterforms when digitising them to hold on to that warmth. From there I built the variants the brand would need across different applications: with or without the slogan, horizontal or stacked.

The leaf can also step out of the letters and hold up on its own. I scaled it up and placed it between "Om" and "Zen," where it becomes an element of the logo in its own right rather than part of a letterform. One leaf does the job, but so do two, three, or more — it depends on what the layout needs.

The leaf opens up the logo, and I pushed the variants further from there. I put the wordmark into a badge, which adds a bit of a vintage feel and sits better over photography. Beyond that, the two halves of the name, the leaves, and the slogan can all shift positions and recombine. At the smallest end, an "o," a "z," and a leaf are enough to carry it — and it still reads as OmZen every time.

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The palette came down to four colors, each with a name and character of its own. The primary was settled in the first round with only small tweaks on temperature and depth later: a deep green we named Forest Green, after the color of tea plants. Morning Orange came in to warm it up, standing in for sun and energy, and Mist Cream, slightly yellow, handles backgrounds. Three colors sitting that comfortably together felt a bit flat, so we added a purple, Dusk Plum, to introduce a bit of contrast. It went through a few rounds and ended up on the darker, calmer side, adding a bit of weight and depth wherever it appears.

Green takes up the most space, as the primary should, but it doesn't have to come from flat color — a photograph of tea leaves, grass, or forest brings in just as much green, and that counts the same way. Mist Cream comes next and is the first choice whenever a layout needs a light background. Orange and plum stay in small doses, used as accents or highlights.

For type I went with Geller for headlines and Imprima for body copy. Geller has visible curves in its letterforms, which keep headlines from feeling stiff. Imprima is modern and clean, but rounder and softer than a typical sans-serif. Both carry a faint hand-drawn warmth, which is what ties them back to the logo.

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The system carries across print collateral, posters, and digital graphics — enough range to see how far it stretches. The print pieces stick mostly to green and cream, with other colors coming in occasionally to break things up, and it's the logo, the leaf, and the type that keep them recognisably part of the same set, with the photography carrying the mood.

The brand continues onto screen, where the same elements get rearranged for different purposes and proportions. These are mockups rather than a finished build, meant to show the client where things could go. Packaging, the website, and whatever comes next will all build on this foundation.