- Client
- The Lab
- Industry
- Location
- Belfast, Northern Ireland
- Year
- 2025
- Services
- Brand strategy
- Visual identity
- Verbal identity
- Packaging & retail signage
- Mobile UI direction
The Lab
Laboratory-grade cleaning, with the environment in mind
Background
The Lab is a dry-cleaning and laundry business on Belfast’s Lisburn Road, founded by a university microbiologist to combine commercial convenience with environmental responsibility.
The brief
Fabric care is commoditised: most businesses compete on proximity and speed. ‘Green’ alternatives lean on kraft paper and leaves, which can suggest weak cleaning. The Lab needed to prove research-backed performance and make its environmental commitment feel premium and credible.
The solution
A dual-reading logomark (a precision water droplet holding a leaf in its negative space) resolves the brand’s two promises in one shape. Laboratory Deep Green and a warm tan accent, Recoleta paired with Gilroy, and low-ink, FSC-certified packaging carry the idea from app icon to shopfront.
The Challenge
Scientific rigour, consumer trust
The brand could not look like an amateur lifestyle project. It needed the authority of an established institution, while making its environmental promise tangible.
The Identity
One mark, two meanings
The droplet represents clinical fabric care; the leaf inside it, conservation. Drawn on a strict geometric grid, the mark holds up from a 16px app icon to large-format signage.
Recoleta brings warmth to headlines; Gilroy brings order to packaging, wayfinding and the app.
Sustainable by Specification
Choices that go beyond the logo
- 01
Minimal ink
Garment tags and laundry bags use generous negative space to cut pigment in print.
- 02
Responsible stock
Unbleached, FSC-certified recycled paper printed with vegetable-based inks.
- 03
Reusable delivery
Single-use wraps replaced by heavy-duty organic canvas garment bags for closed-loop returns.
