Nortrade started trading in 1983 with a handful of seafood products for wholesale and hospitality. Over the last 40 years the business has grown into the expert importer and wholesaler of frozen seafood for the UK’s Asian market.

The core issue was that the brand and visual identity had not kept pace with the business.

Speaking to people across different functions of the business, it’s clear that Nortrade has a well known name and excellent reputation for the most reliable supply chain in its sector. Customer service and market knowledge are second to none and they have some of the best selling trade brands in the market.

The first task was to audit the brand, its different expressions, and review the broader architecture.

In a 40 year old brand, it’s inevitable to find some inconsistency with a few logo variations in use. Nortrade was also being used as an undefined product brand as well as the parent brand – a core issue that needed to be addressed.

The identity development has resulted in a bespoke typographic word mark, a refreshed logo mark in the frozen fish icon, a bold and distinct colour palette (almost everyone in seafood uses blues…), and a new strapline.

By keeping the name and the fish icon, we kept the distinctive brand assets, and increased their relevance. The evolution of the fish icon inspired by shards of ice, and a new, fresher colour palette, has seen the creation of devices to help navigate the huge range.

With this new identity, the name and its new graphic language could now be hero-ed in its most visible applications.

The new shard shapes have become a graphic asset, creating an ownable and flexible visual language.

Across the brand activation, they come together and break apart to recognisably represent the frozen category.

The clean graphic shapes, combined with the limited palette are used to create more bespoke brand assets for customer facing activations, internal signage, sales materials and branded clothing.

The refreshed brand architecture follows an endorsed brand model so the Nortrade name has been elevated above the status of product brand. The company’s owned brands now have a clear link back to the parent company, increasing the value of both at the same time.

As well as the main rebrand, the product catalogue of approx. 20 trademarks has been consolidated to five, each with a clear rationale, positioning and their own distinct visual identities, relevant to their specific markets.

We’ll be sharing more of that project very soon.