Design of logo and label for the soft drink Guarana Power.
Superflex developed a soft drink together with local farmers from Maués in the Brazilian Amazon who cultivate the caffeine rich berries of the guarana plant as used in the market leading soft drink Guaraná Antarctica. The project was a response to the unfair treatment local farmers had received from the Guaraná Antarctica, and was an aim to secure profits for those that had always in the past fallen to the marketing companies. The project was a counter strategy that would use the same raw resources to help the farmers.
The initial Guarana Power label was a very similar facsimile to that of the market leader and can be described as a parody of the corporate brazilian brand Guaraná Antarctica. This practice of making spoofs or parodies of corporate brands is also know as "Subvertising" and is often connected with political activism. The Guarana Power project rendered economic structures visible and tried to establish a new balance.
Due to obvious accusations of product piracy and as a reaction to legal restrictions enforced by Guaraná Antarctica, the branding of the soft drink underwent an unexpected evolution of visible censorship. This meant that there were several consecutive stages of design, each one censored further than the previous. The resulting, almost completely censored mark came to represent the struggle of the local farmers.
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Superflex developed a soft drink together with local farmers from Maués in the Brazilian Amazon who cultivate the caffeine rich berries of the guarana plant as used in the market leading soft drink Guaraná Antarctica. The project was a response to the unfair treatment local farmers had received from the Guaraná Antarctica, and was an aim to secure profits for those that had always in the past fallen to the marketing companies. The project was a counter strategy that would use the same raw resources to help the farmers.
The initial Guarana Power label was a very similar facsimile to that of the market leader and can be described as a parody of the corporate brazilian brand Guaraná Antarctica. This practice of making spoofs or parodies of corporate brands is also know as "Subvertising" and is often connected with political activism. The Guarana Power project rendered economic structures visible and tried to establish a new balance.
Due to obvious accusations of product piracy and as a reaction to legal restrictions enforced by Guaraná Antarctica, the branding of the soft drink underwent an unexpected evolution of visible censorship. This meant that there were several consecutive stages of design, each one censored further than the previous. The resulting, almost completely censored mark came to represent the struggle of the local farmers.
Read more...
Guarana logo – lettering, first draft
| year |
2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 |
| place |
Maues, BR et al |
| project |
Guarana Power |
| client |
Superflex
A Danish art group working in the field of art, engineering and science. Rather than working with art in a conventional sense, Superflex make tools for engaging users in social collaboration. The underlying philosophy of Superflex’s work is that art itself is a tool, not just for contemplation or aesthetic experiments, but for social empowerment. Superflex often collaborates with different experts and uses the art world as a showcase for their works. superflex.net |
| people |
Rasmus Koch |
| credit | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License, unless otherwise noted. |