Sepoy & Co, Olssøn Barbieri

Sepoy & Co

Sepoy&Co is a challenger brand based in New Delhi and since there are no mixers challenging the premium segment in India the ambition was to position Sepoy&Co as a local alternative for quality focused Indian consumers.

Year
2018
Client
Sepoy & Co
Goal
Blending the fascinating story of the British and Indian Empire
Deliverables
Packaging, Custom bottle, Identity, Branding

Industries
Beverage
Materials
Glass, Aluminium, Uncoated paper UPM Raflatak
Techniques
Glass casting, Offset printing
Collaborators
Mathias Hansson, CAD Development
Tim Cooper, Rendering

Awards
2020, German Design Award Nomination
2019, Visuelt Diploma
2019, Pentawards Silver

Tonic water has evolved from an afterthought to an essential part of a mixed drink. Consumers are increasingly knowledgeable about premium spirits and looking for bespoke mixers with greater flavour profiles.

Sepoy&Co's recipes are crafted in London and made with 100% natural ingredients from India. We were asked to develop the brand platform including the structural bottle design that would transmit kinship to Indian history and stand out as a contemporary brand that would naturally belong in the context of a bar.

The naming is inspired by the legacy of the Sepoy warriors that have deep roots in Indian culture and are an integral part of the story of Gin&Tonic itself. The visual strategy is based on colour codes and patterns that communicates taste profile while the typography is a combination of sans serif and script creating a contrast between heritage and a contemporary brand identity.

The sepoy and the colonial medicine

A sepoy was originally the designation given to an Indian infantryman armed with a musket in the armies of the Mughal empire. In the 18th century the French East India Company and its other European counterparts employed locally recruited soldiers within India, mainly consisting of infantry designated as "sepoys". The largest of these Indian forces, trained along European lines, was that belonging to the British East India Company.

The British, once they learnt about quinine, introduced it in India mainly for the Indian soldiers fighting for the British East India Company. After the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, the British Crown took over the governance of India from the British East India Company and strengthened its presence on the subcontinent. By the late 1850s, the growing number of troops and their families in India increased the demand for quinine. Living in the colony required the ability to fight the deadly disease of Malaria, many British expatriates in India consumed rations of quinine in the form of “Indian tonic water.”

The elephant in the brand mark is a central figure in Indian religion and mythology, emblematic of good fortune in new endeavours, protection and strength. The vertical pattern of the bottle design borrows inspiration from spirits and soda water bottles from the 19th-Century and is also a nod to the brotherhood of the Sepoys and their mantra “stronger together”.