Why Did Fresh Slice Get The Chop?
Behind the Zest rebrand with a view from the cutting room floor.
As many will know, we made our start as an illustration collective called Fresh Slice, opening with an exhibition and industry event for students of Communication Design in September 2024. Continuing to grow from there, with a Christmas Market in that December, our goal was always to enrich the design community in Aberdeen with our own unique citrus blend of sincerity and buoyancy.
Fresh Slice was a vibrant and temporary burst of energy, pinned to a specific moment in time. Besides, after a lull in the collective and a change in our structure, a brand review seemed long overdue.
“Fresh Slice started to resemble a former self, like a faded photograph from a naïve phase of life. I kept looking at our branding and felt like we’d already outgrown our visual identity. Something just didn’t resonate anymore. Before the collective even made its first full trip around the sun, I knew we had moved on from where we began all those months ago.”
- Chrissy Simms, Creative Lead
Working with FortyTwo was an incredible experience. It helped us shape something out of nothing, and we never could have imagined the reception it would receive. Fresh Slice was a one-off event. A singular moment that sparked a flame, incidentally attracting a small following of people invested in our next move. The process of cultivating a community had planted a seed with the potential to bloom.
Our creative direction was defined by this stationary moment in time. It was structured around the idea of a singular exhibition, heavily borrowing from our surroundings. We drew inspiration from the architecture of FortyTwo’s midcentury modern studio, including the accents of stained glass in the Community Hub upstairs. Our choices in type were reflections of their narrow windows, which we combined with playful illustrations. Even our name, ‘Fresh Slice’, was calculated using FortyTwo’s personal history as a studio.
As time went on, our brand felt borrowed from signs that weren’t ours. In many ways, this was stifling our style and voice because we weren’t able to evolve from the start. It’s hard to feel ownership of something that directly references someone else. At the same time, our circumstances were quickly changing.
Oblivious to what was about to unfold, I hosted an open call to the students of ComDes to get involved in a new project under the Fresh Slice name. I introduced the idea of ‘Zest Mag’, a printed illustration-led magazine, to bridge the gap between local design studios and emerging talent from RGU. It was an exciting new prospect to sink my teeth into for the remainder of my graduate residency in the department. It was met with an overwhelming response from the students. It seemed as though I struck a chord that resonated with a lot of people. Zest was so synchronistic, it felt like it came through divine intervention.
However, sometimes the universe likes to throw you a curveball. A week after the brief went live, I fell into my first job at a design studio. As the selected students launched into their submissions for the magazine brief, I suddenly had one foot in my old world and one in the new.
Those first few weeks were hectic, but as I settled into my new routine, I was amazed by the creative answers to the brief flooding my inbox. The quality of work, as well as the time and effort that went into each submission, felt like a glowing confirmation that I had something worth pursuing here. Something I wasn’t sure could be real was forming before my eyes, and I felt an unrelenting impulse to keep it alive.
Working in a studio changed the way I saw things - what I notice, how I edit myself and what I want to say. Around this time, Substack came into view, and I reimagined our studio-bound collective as a digital garden to keep us connected. A new network tied to our roots, liberated from a fleeted moment. Somewhere more meaningful and evergreen, opposed to a superficial Instagram connection.
Our new identity still references our debut. A continuation of the Zest Mag brief and retaining our sweet and citrus hallmark. No longer a slice, we have embraced our whole. We love what Zest represents, as the word holds everything we need for our creative practice.
Enthusiasm. Appetite. Enjoyment. Eagerness. Passion. Joy. Love. Delight. Fervour. Spirit. Pep.
We still intend to publish a physical copy later in the year, fulfilling our promise from the original brief and as a thank you to those who supported us enough to see us through our redefining era. Hopefully, Zest Mag will keep nurturing our relationships with the friends of Fresh Slice, long after they don their cap and gown.
Thank you to everyone who has ever supported Fresh Slice. We hope you enjoy Zest and stick around to see what we do next.
✏️ Join the collective, follow us on Instagram @thezestmag
🔦 Want to see your work featured? Submit your project to Zest Mag here!