Amsterdam studio Design & Practice creates a new brand identity for Antalis’ flagship premium uncoated paper range Olin. The rebrand brings to life the commitment of Olin paper to the creative community by repositioning it with the goal to speak directly to designers and inspiring them.

Olin has been a well-respected premium offset paper by designers and printers alike for years, and as the only brand exclusively owned by Antalis it is a vital brand in the offering of one of Europe’s largest paper merchants, that operates globally in almost all major markets.

With an existing brand identity that felt outdated and a market that was growing increasingly competitive, Antalis commissioned Design & Practice for a strategic repositioning of the brand identity and design of a new identity to revive the brand and grow its reach.
Design & Practice analysed the existing brand and paper to get a thorough understanding of the market and audience. The new brand identity has been designed with the creative community as it’s core – a desirable canvas to inspire ideas and bring to life creative dreams.

With the intention to grow and expand the Olin brand into various ranges Design & Practice worked with Antalis to launch the first range of tools under the new name Olin Design. A collection of tools made in collaboration with state-of-the-art printers who push the boundaries of paper and print within the industry.
The new Olin Design Inspiration Pack celebrates the boundless creative possibilities of the Olin Design range through a set of collectable cards to be discovered and shared. The tactile qualities of the Olin Design range are revealed alongside cutting-edge printing processes which add a haptic experience to the tool and papers. Each of the 11 cards challenge your perception of paper through visually poetic designs executed through exquisite, refined and tactile print processes. Print processes including the highest quality and detailed foil, microstructures, embossings, special spot colours, overprinting, standard offset and die-cutting of the paper reveal the versatility and possibilities of the Olin Design range. “We wanted to create a tool that inspires designers to explore more experimental processes”. The Olin Design Sample Folder is a sculptural folder that has been created to reveal the range of papers and textures of Olin Design whilst showing the high-quality print capabilities of the uncoated range. Design & Practice worked with their artistic practice Rive Roshan led by the founders of the studio to create oil paintings that could be brought to life through print and show the ability of the paper to reveal every brushstroke of the painting. The tool enables designers to explore and compare the papers textures and colours of the paper side-by-side.
To reach the creative audience in the digital realm, the brand had to come to life – not only through physical tools but through a ‘digital world’. In order to achieve this together with Antalis, Design & Practice has initiated the @olin_paper instagram page to create a social channel for the brand to come to life.
The digital content includes making-of content, studio videos, tactile content, typographic animations and inspiring posts to educate the creative audience about Olin.
We ultimately asked the question – “how can we bring such a tactile range to life for the creative community in the digital realm”? and “how can we help designers”?
As the brand grows into various new ranges we plan to keep the creative audience at the core of the Olin brand and design with the goal to constantly inspire the creative community.