Zerra
A brand of its own for three decades of bio-based packaging, so choosing the sustainable option feels like an upgrade.
- Client
- HLM
- Year
- 2025–26
- Made at
- Essential Studio, Bangkok
- My role
- Creative direction
- Credits
- Images © HLM and Essential Studio
The brief
HLM has made bio-based packaging for about thirty years as an OEM partner, to other companies' specifications and under other companies' names. The expertise was real, but nobody outside the trade could name it, and the sustainable products and projects the company had been building had no home of their own.
HLM wanted a brand that could stand in front of buyers, retailers and partners, and make the sustainable option feel like an upgrade.
What we decided
Strategy before drawing. With an external strategy consultant, we settled the mission, the values and the brand's character before any design work began. The concept that came out of it, Earth's Advocate, gave every later choice a reason beyond taste.
A name with room to grow. Zerra puts zero, as in zero waste, next to terra, the earth. It's short, easy to say in several languages and not tied to packaging, so the company can grow into it.
One system for every touchpoint. A symbol of two shapes folding into each other, one typeface, navy and lime on a warm ivory, and a topographic line pattern that works at any scale, from a social post to the trade-fair booth.
What came of it
Zerra made its public debut at THAIFEX 2026, where the booth, the packaging, the website and the social channels appeared together for the first time. A capability that used to sit behind other brands now has a name of its own.