E45

Celebrating the building blocks of healthy skin

An expert-led skincare brand for over 70 years, E45 was looking to embark on a strategic revamp to deliver a new brand identity, packaging design, and brand world experience that brought its inclusive and personal identity to the forefront. We partnered with the team to deliver the architecture for meaningful, emotive, and flexible storytelling via a wide-ranging series of assets.

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The Tension

A trusted skincare brand for decades, E45 was losing relevance in the competitive market, particularly amongst younger consumers who weren't perceiving the brand as modern. We identified that E45's distinctive, cell-shaped logo was what shoppers instantly recognised and connected with - unveiling the brand's unique core asset. Our challenge was to revive E45 with a meaningful brand refresh using the skin cell as the distinctive brand asset, in order to connect with the next generation of consumers and help drive relevance and modernity of its iconic heritage.

The Power

We evolved E45's brand language to be more visceral and relatable, reimagining skin cells as visual building blocks to provide the pathway to healthy and confident skin. The updated logo follows letterforms that link visually with its distinctive cell shape, and the skin cell transforms into a visual device that can expand and flex in different ways to provide a window for conversational extracts or lifestyle photography. A new colour palette design was introduced to help the brand pop across a variety of digital and physical touchpoints, and updated photography guidelines are formed around key principles of representation and inclusivity in line with the brand's tone of voice. The perfect balance had to be struck between capturing E45's scientific expertise and its appeal for everyday use to deliver a brand identity that felt friendly, personable, and inclusive - but which still upheld its credibility as an expert-led skincare brand. Together, the new assets create the essence of an agile and compelling identity, reinventing E45 in an array of coherent yet playful ways to celebrate all skin.

“Elmwood's idea of the 'building blocks of skin' not only unlocked and unveiled E45's unique core asset, but also breathed life into a versatile design system that we can seamlessly integrate across our entire marketing spectrum. The adaptability and flexibility of skin cells enables us to weave meaningful narratives for our experts and consumers alike.”Steve Binding, Global Head of Design and Creative at Karo Healthcare