“We don’t swim with the current. We create it,” said Lisa Gandolfi, PhD, VP, Marketing.
This is the confidence and rebellious spirit behind Inolex’s new corporate identity launching this week. The new brand was developed over a yearlong partnership with world-renowned design studio Pentagram. Michael Gericke and team led the endeavour.
The result is a bold approach shaped to inspire positive rebellion in the beauty and personal care industry.
Inolex’s new identity delivers an edgy, contemporary attitude for the fiercely independent company with a century-plus pedigree. With its distinct teal wordmark and compact logo of a singular X, the Inolex logo has been carefully designed as a recognisable graphic element that expresses the company’s fluidity between science and nature throughout its thoughtful, sustainable ingredient design.
Why is an ingredient company that is “behind the label” intent on taking its brand to such a distinct position?
“Inolex has been pushing the envelope for years, introducing sustainable technologies that have challenged and redefined ingredient mainstays in health, beauty, and wellness,” said Gandolfi.
“We’ve had the essence of our identity, this kind of rebellious spirit, in our products and our approach, for decades. Through our work with the Pentagram team, we were able to distill who we are and what we offer to the industry into an elegant and artistic visual design and imagery that transcends all that we do.”
The company is being intentional not to define beauty with imagery of people. Instead, Pentagram has developed a visual language using expressive, translucent natural imagery and abstract textures. The proprietary imagery portrays the duality of nature and science with dynamic compositions that evoke curiosity and create a feeling of freshness with calm breathing space.
Even Inolex’s new wordmark, with its bespoke letterforms and distinctive X connotes the tempered irreverence and agile character that the company exudes. Pentagram’s Michael Gericke, one of the firm’s most well-known and respected partners, led the team responsible for developing Inolex’s new brand identity. “Inolex’s leadership truly cares about people and our environment. They challenged and encouraged us to be bold— even rebellious,” says Gericke.
“We expressed their passion for innovation as a positive force and disruptor in an industry on the threshold of extraordinary change.” And while a focus on sustainability is indeed top of mind throughout the beauty care industry, the centrality of sustainability is unmistakable at Inolex. According to Chief Executive Officer David Plimpton, the company challenges itself to think differently to invent the future of ingredient platforms—and its people and products exist to serve the greater good.
“Sustainable ingredient design, leading with science and honouring nature, is our core capability as a company. We place value on encouraging intellectual curiosity, embedding thoughtful, responsible design into our ingredients, and celebrating enduring partnerships with our customers so that we can create better consumer products together,” said Plimpton.
“Can you be disruptive while still caring deeply for others? Absolutely.” It’s that sentiment, balancing expertise in science while being bold stewards of people and place, that Inolex believes will serve to inspire where the beauty care industry goes in the decades to come.
Inolex’s new brand is a clear indication of the company’s future—and where its imaginative approaches are poised to take the industry.
