Hybrid spotlight the possibilities of Mohawk’s Sustainable Collection with a story-driven campaign

In a relaunch of its portfolio, NY-based and family-owned fine paper mill Mohawk has worked with long-term collaborators Hybrid Design to conceptualise and develop a new visual system for its products. This centres around five new collections that demonstrate the capabilities and strengths of the company’s papers.

Following our feature of the San Francisco-based studio’s reimagining of the Beautiful Collection, they have also devised the campaign for the relaunch of Mohawk’s Sustainable Collection. Inspired by the famous phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan, ‘The Material is the Message’ tells the story of six different creations (from installations to artefacts) that were crafted using unconventional materials or methods. These include Simone Post’s works with ECO-oh! Plastics; Philipp Hainke’s sustainable fibres and objects; and LCA Architetti’s ‘The House of Wood, Straw and Cork,’ to name a few. These stories are a perfect reflection of Mohawk’s own environmental approach to the sustainable collection of papers, and became a focal point of the project. 

Made with post-consumer waste and alternative fibres such as hemp, Mohawk’s sustainable papers provide a powerful opportunity to add substance to sustainable storytelling. “Our choices for this piece were inspired by these stories and used the Sustainable Collection of papers,” Design Director ​​Olivia Ward explains, “from Mohawk Renewal Hemp (each containing 30% hemp fibre blended with post-consumer waste), to Mohawk Options (containing 100% post-consumer waste).” With nine textures, 26 colours and 18 weights available, the papers themselves were designed to make their ingredients visible. “For this reason, we chose to use the paper as a colour wherever possible,” Ward continues. “The materials tell a story all by themselves.”

As part of the visual system, Hybrid Design have used die cuts to differentiate between the ranges. In the case of Sustainable, Ward notes, “the figure eight shape represents the continuous life cycle carefully considered materials can have, and the boundless possibilities of creating with them.”

Hybrid Design

Mohawk