Pearlfisher repositioned 250-year-old Reeves as a brand for the maker generation

Reeves needed to reconnect with the contemporary creative consumer and open the brand beyond professional artists, spanning identity, packaging and digital expression.

Pearlfisher replaced prescriptive packaging that showed finished artworks and step-by-step guides with designs about 'sparking creativity and celebrating spontaneous creation', introduced a cleaner typeface, a colourful coding system and a bolder wordmark in which the R evokes a framed corner, and carried the look online with a website offering inspiration to engage consumers on an emotional level.

No measured results are given; the repositioning reframed a heritage art brand as a lifestyle brand for a consumer group Pearlfisher futures director Sophie Maxwell describes as 'confident, connected and expressive'.

Pearlfisher gave art product brand Reeves a new look — the identity's first update in its 250-year history — under a brief to 'reconnect with the contemporary creative consumer'. A research phase established that the brand needed to appeal to the 'maker generation', a consumer group Pearlfisher futures director Sophie Maxwell describes as confident, connected and expressive, and looking for an avenue for self-expression in an over-digitised world.

That meant opening the brand so it is no longer seen as the preserve of artists — Maxwell says 'millennials exemplify a new creative lifestyle' — and repositioning Reeves as a lifestyle brand rather than a heritage one.

Associate creative director Jon Vallance explained the shift on pack: where the old packaging was prescriptive, showing finished artworks and step-by-step guides, the new packaging is about sparking creativity and celebrating spontaneous creation. The system adds a cleaner typeface, a colourful coding system and a bolder wordmark whose R evokes a framed corner, continued online with a website offering inspiration.

Step-by-step guide packaging assumed an aspiring copyist; the maker generation wants permission, not instruction.

Colour coding makes a 250-year-old range navigable for casual newcomers.

The R as framed corner ties the wordmark to what the tools produce: something worth hanging.

Digital expression extended the repositioning beyond the shelf, where the maker audience actually lives.

A heritage brand stays relevant by changing what its packaging asks of the user — from 'follow the guide' to 'make your own' — before changing what it looks like.

Design Week reported the rebrand on 21 June 2017. The article gives no sales, distribution or brand-tracking results.