The Wombles first appeared on TV screens over 50 years ago. With them came an environmental message long before green campaigning was in the mainstream like it is today, spurring litter-picking efforts around the country in the form of ‘wombling’ groups.

Thanks to their creative ways of collecting and recycling human waste, you could call them the OG environmentalists – which is exactly how they’ve been positioned in their new brand identity. The Wombles will be used as a seal of approval for sustainable businesses, for anyone wondering why they needed a brand in the first place.

With this new chapter for the Wombles on the horizon, London-based agency How&How has stepped in to reimagine The Wombles brand and its furry cast, including Great Uncle Bulgaria, Madame Cholet, Tobermory and Orinoco.

True to The Wombles’ own practice, the team at How&How went for a reuse and recycle approach to creating the brand world by digging up visual materials from the past, including icons, illustrations and pictograms.

Each character has its own sub-brand featuring individual palettes and patterns, along with a suite of illustrated icons nodding to their unique interests and personalities from the original stories. The verbal identity has also been inspired by The Wombles, namely the theme song and scripts, and is paired with new headline typeface Kyle by French foundry Blazetype, used across the identity.

Meanwhile, The Wombles also have a new ‘W’ motif and wordmark. “With regards to the wordmark, we wanted to align as closely with the chunky slab original, so chose Nordvest by Monokrom foundry as our base. Its horizontals are slightly thicker than its verticals which we really liked,” explains the agency’s founder and creative director, Cat How.

“This subtle reversal of the traditional weighting of thick and thin strokes gives it an odd, jaunty playfulness – a unique tone and texture which we thought was perfect for the eclecticism of The Wombles.”

The digital illustration style and character icons are both quite different to the furry models that appeared on TV, which for many people will be the definitive version of the characters – though really there is no such thing, with countless iterations of The Wombles having been created since they first appeared in 1960s in Elisabeth Beresford’s books.

While the initiative is about uplifting brands committed to “making less stuff”, according to How&How, it looks as though the identity will also be used across The Wombles’ physical brand collateral and merchandise. Hopefully there is a restrained hand in this regard, so that they don’t lose the environmental credentials they’ve remained so beloved for over the years.

how.studio