Since launching four years ago, PenguinPickUp has grown to more than 70 locations across Canada. It has continued to grow in tandem with e-commerce, and is now poised to expand internationally.

PenguinPickup offers a solution to one of the biggest concerns for online shoppers: ensuring that their deliveries make it to them safely and securely. Shoppers can have their online orders delivered to a Penguin location and held until it’s convenient to retrieve them.

Until recently, PenguinPickup’s brand image was a cartoon penguin carrying a package. (Penguin was founded by SmartCentres, which also has a penguin logo.) But as part of its expansion plans, Penguin wanted to modernize its brand. It recently hired Toronto agency Open to create a new identity. “They were getting ready for a large scale expansion and needed a brand that reflected their ambition and service—modern, simple, friendly and fun,” said the agency’s designer/art director Jessica Rogers. The new identity debuted in October and is being rolled out nationally. Rogers explained the thinking behind some of the key design elements.

1. Friendly: PenguinPickUp prides itself on its impeccable customer service. As such, we wanted to make sure our icon reflected that – hence our Penguin’s friendly face and winking expression.

2. Recognizable shape: PenguinPickUp is the destination to pick up all your packages, so utilizing the familiar shape of the location drop pin for our penguin icon was key to the design.

3. Minimal: PenguinPickUp is easy to use and makes your life easier. We wanted our design to reflect this, so we used a minimal colour palette and a simple icon to communicate how uncomplicated the service is.

4. Blue: We chose blue as our primary brand colour because it symbolizes trust, confidence, and stability—everything you would want in someone holding your personal belongings and important packages.