Saint Urbain devise a series of eclectic and joyful identities for YouTube’s Shorts Drive-Thru

As part of a promotional campaign at VidCon 2022 for YouTube Shorts, the online video platform’s answer to TikTok and Instagram Reels, YouTube took the opportunity to develop an experiential drive-thru. Their in-house team partnered with NYC and LA-based creative agency Saint Urbain to design a series of vibrant, eclectic and joyful identities for the snacks that were available at the event. Featuring a five-pillar collection of one-off tasty treats from some of the platform’s top creators, Saint Urbain consumed hours upon hours of YouTube content to fully understand their personalities, stories and subtleties, resulting in cereal from Saucy Santana, pizza cookies from The Valentine Brothers, sour sweets from NEEZY, gummies from Nia Sioux and Chocolate from Mac Does It.

“For each of the creators, we generated pieces that contain specific elements that connect directly with their audiences,” Creative Director Alex Ostroff tells us, “whether it be phrases that they have positioned as their brand or graphic elements that bring a sense of collectivity to each package,” treating the latter as somewhat of a classic baseball card. “It’s something similar,” he adds, “only here the stats become iconic phrases, personal gestures, jokes, etc.”

Breaking down the design and type for each sub-brand, Ostroff explains, “for Saucy Santana, he’s very bold, sassy, powerful, and loves fashion,” opting for Linotype’s Neue Haas Grotesk, Rizado from Kostic Type Foundry and Commerical Classic’s Original Sans as Cereal Gworl’s typeface combination. “We wanted to go with something that had the classy edge that he likes to portray,” Ostroff adds. Similarly, opting for Original Sans, alongside a bespoke cut of Blow Up by HvD Fonts, Mac Does It’s Chocolate Bwah, as Ostroff notes, came easily to the studio. “His catchphrase is ‘BWAH!’” he explains, “it’s super juvenile, but also flat out hilarious,” capturing this bright, bold and colourful tone across the chocolate’s brand. “He’s goofy and bright and silly,” Ostroff adds, “so we wanted a font and illustration system to match.” 

This direct correlation between characterful tone and type is again reflected in the hype-centric typography within NEEZYS’ use of Klim Type Foundry’s National 2 and Theophile Beaudoire’s classic Romana, as well as the lightweight yet punchy application of Radim Pesko’s Agipo, Monotype’s Arial and a customised version of Lazy Bones from Letraset Studio across Nia Sioux’s Solos’ visual language. “She’s a dancer and loves music,” Ostroff explains, “so we wanted to create something fun that has this playful energy.”

Finally, Latinotype’s Recoleta, Arial and Adobe Original’s Brush Script were harnessed in tandem for the historically-inspired brand for The Valentine Brothers’ pizza cookie – a combination of the creator’s two favourite foods. “We wanted to do something classic, so we followed vintage pizza boxes,” Ostroff explains, “but also made it a bit modern to match the gen-z vibe,” he adds, reflecting the warmth of the brothers’ characters, as well as the association of their name, with a prominent heart shape at the front and centre of the packaging. “We went big on having their faces on the front of the box,” Ostroff concludes, “because we knew how much they’d appreciate it too.”

Saint Urbain