Caserne’s wholesome identity for Dam captures the production process of their alternative milks

Balancing graphic elegance and emotive wholesomeness, Caserne’s photogenic identity for Canadian alternative milk brand Dam has brought a fresh aesthetic to the industry. The Montreal-based collaboration demonstrates the success of creative partnerships, with talented photographers, typographers and artists working together to shape a truly unique brand.

Dam’s fluid yet punchy wordmark seeks to represent the production of their products – from physical to liquid form – manifesting in a mark made of bespoke letterforms. “We created the typeface for the wordmark from scratch,” Creative Director and Partner Léo Breton-Allaire tells us, “Coppers & Brasses came afterwards to refine the character design,” he adds, recalling their partnership with the type foundry in finessing the wordmark.

Taking a supporting role to the wordmark is Optimo’s sans serif Rand, the slick and stark design of which complement the identity’s embrace of minimalism – in turn reflecting Dam’s zero-waste policies. “As there’s a lot of eclectic things in the toolbox, we used Rand to convey something stable and rigorous,” Breton-Allaire remarks, “where Swiss-esque typography and rigid layout systems balance things out,” crafting playful contrasts within the typeface’s letterforms. “We had fun thinking the letter ‘t,’ with the cropped terminal, was dipped in the milk,” he adds.

Bringing the identity together is the fun and practical use of colour, manifesting in both the limited hues of the colour palette and the delicate artwork of Canadian artist Sarah Osborne. Discussing the palette, Breton-Allaire notes, “we were inspired by the product itself at first,” explaining, “white and beige were chosen for the concentrate and blue for the water you need to add into the product.” These decisions then led to the inclusion of a dark brown in favour of black to provide “something warm and inviting” to the products and packaging.

“A secondary colour palette has also been developed,” Breton-Allaire adds, “to distinguish the different bases, such as peanut, almond, oat, etc.” These colours and Dam’s physical bottle design are embodied and complemented in Osborne’s paintings, implemented in both Dam’s digital spaces and physical touchpoints. “Sarah’s art practice already incorporates everyday consumer products into still life,” Breton-Allaire concludes, “alive expression combined with an appreciation for ordinary things fits naturally with the honest looseness of the brand.”

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