Redesign mascot for a plant-based medical product which alleviates digestive problems!

F.Trenka GmbH

Background – F.Trenka

F.Trenka is an Austrian pharmaceutical company located in Vienna. The company has over 100 years of experience in promoting natural health and well-being with high quality plant-based medical products.

Get to know our product Eucarbon®:

The company’s main product, Eucarbon® is a plant and mineral-based pharmaceutical product for relieving digestive distress in a natural way. Eucarbon® comes in tablets that have a typical black color. Its main components comprise of vegetable carbon (hence the black color of the tablets) as well as various herbal ingredients such as senna and rhubarb root.

Eucarbon® was first developed 100 years ago and its formulation has not changed ever since. We are proud to say that Eucarbon® is now represented in more than 70 countries worldwide.

In many countries Eucarbon® is associated with a mascot that cleans its digestive tract with what appears to be a brush. Some people also say that the bristle also alludes to the black tablets of Eucarbon (since these contain – amongst other ingredients – charcoal).
At the moment, Eucarbon is going through a major design revamp. In this context we are also looking to review the appearance of the mascot itself.

The Eucarbon® tablets come in a yellow colored packaging; its trade mark color which is quick to catch anyone’s eye.

Target group

Eucarbon® is consumed by both men and women alike and is taken from all social strata. The typical customer of Eucarbon is probably 35 years+ and – given that the product is heavily used in the Middle East –is relatively conservative.

At the same time the company is looking to rejuvenate its brand and the mascot is part of this transformative process.

What our task is all about:

We are aiming to modernize and revive our current Eucarbon product mascot without losing its recognition value.

The outdated appearance of the mascot should be adapted to our new market image (overall design, packaging, product logo etc.), meaning that the new mascot illustration should be in line with the color and the lettering of our new product design.

It is important that the appearance of the current mascot should not be changed drastically, yet it should be clearly visible that the new mascot conveys a sense of balanced modernity, refreshing simplicity and a likable/appealing character.

The challenge of this task is to find the right approach for creating a modernized but not overly digitalized character for our new product mascot.

In short, we seek an evolution of the current mascot, not a complete revolution of the current appearance. And keep it simple.

The colors for the mascot should be in accordance to the color of the Eucarbon® packaging yellow and dark blue which are defined as followed:

Pantone 123 C
Pantone 5395 C

Here is the link to our new product website for more inspiration. http://www.eucarbon.com

Here is the link to our OLD website. http://www.ftrenka.com

Summary

These criteria have to be included:

• Respect for an existing mascot that has accompanied Eucarbon for more than 100 years around the word (refer to downloads to see past versions of the mascot)
• Brush (to clean the digestive tract)
• Modernized design but NOT overly digitalized character
• Pre-defined colours of Eucarbon (see Pantone codes above)

Nice-to-have:
• Our current mascot cleans his stomach with a brush. Since our product is an intestinal regulator, it would be "better" if the brush cleaned the colon (given that the intestine – from past experience – is very difficult to illustrate, this is not a must!)
• The black Eucarbon tablet can be integrated into the design.
• Our current mascot is a little bit corpulent and comes across as jovial to many people. We like this body measurements, but this is just a guideline.
• In general, the mascot does not necessarily need outfit or clothes - the simpler the better
• The mascot should generally represent our idea of a natural product (charcoal is the defining ingredient)
• A stylish minimalist mascot is an option the company would consider

What we don´t want:

• Manga-like Design
• Overly digitalized Design
• Extremely voluminous hair or fancy clothes

Evolution, not revolution! F.Trenka was working with a recognized brand agency on the redesign of its logo, packaging and website. In the attachments you can find the old and new packaging and compare the fonts used for Eucarbon. Online you will find the old website under http://www.ftrenka.com, the new one under http://www.eucarbon.com. It is time to review the mascot! In the attachment please find the first mascot used in the 1970s and the one in use today.