The corner store, reborn.
Four busy outlets, loyal regulars, and a brand that undersold all of it. We rebuilt uMart from the foundations up — identity, voice, pattern, and the website that carries them — documented in a 16-page brand guide.
One promise: convenience should not be a luxury.
uMart provides everyday essentials at fair, supermarket-level prices — no "convenience tax," ever — across four outlets in Balestier, Boat Quay, Katong and Sims Drive. The stores had the substance; the brand had none of it.
We distilled who uMart actually is into one personality — the dependable, no-nonsense neighbour with a fun streak — and rebuilt everything around it.
Mission, vision, value — settled first.
Mission
Prove that a convenience store can be highly profitable while charging fair, supermarket-level prices — no 'convenience tax', ever.
Vision
Become Singapore's most trusted neighbourhood retail brand: everyday affordability without the markup, growing only when the location is right.
Value
Uncompromising integrity. Never mislead, never overcharge, never exploit a customer's need for convenience.
Same pin. Whole new posture.
The rules that keep it tidy
- The pin sits over the 'u' only — never another letter. Pin = 15.5% of wordmark size.
- Flanks: top + bottom stripes equal, middle stripe 55% length. Order: red, sky, midnight.
- Clearspace = the height of the 'u' on all sides. Minimum wordmark width 96px / 24mm.
- The logo never recolours — white plate or approved colorways only.
Five colours, strictly rationed.
The old red-and-black read as harsh and strict — more warning label than welcome mat. uMart asked for the opposite: vibrant, warm and easy to walk into. Cherry Red stays as the hook but softens, flat black becomes a friendlier Midnight, and Sky, Sunshine and Warm Paper open the palette up — rationed so it reads cheerful, never loud.
Proportions — how the palette is balanced (sunshine capped at 5%)
One voice, four registers.
The brief was practical: type that stays legible everywhere — a phone screen, a shelf-talker, a backlit signboard. So the stack is built from complementary faces that pair cleanly instead of clashing: Outfit for the wordmark and headings, Work Sans for body, DM Mono for the fine print — four registers, one comfortable voice.
The stack in action — a shelf-talker set entirely in system type
How uMart sounds.
Say
- "Everyday prices" / "fair prices"
- "Delightful discoveries" / "less commonly available"
- "Welcoming neighbourhood spaces"
- Clear, warm, direct sentences
Avoid
- "Cheapest in town!" / blowout-sale jargon
- Negative framing of competitors
- Corporate stiffness, marketing buzzwords
- Any tobacco reference in public materials
festive campaigns
Pin Confetti.
The pin multiplies into confetti — three colorways for three jobs. Spacing is part of the pattern: one pin per 420px tile, never compressed, scaled by whole tiles. At 30% tint it sits behind web content and the Grab app.
Festive flexing allowed — pattern colours may flex for LNY, National Day and Deepavali; the logo never recolours
Drawn in the pin's language.
Every icon speaks like the logo: midnight stroke, rounded ends, and exactly one red detail — never more. 10px stroke on a 300px artboard, sitting on paper-tint tiles, never on the pattern.
The working set — from aisles to add-on services, one family
Then the brand got a home.
The identity ships on a website rebuilt from scratch — aisle-first navigation, the three answers every visitor wants promoted to the hero, and a four-outlet finder that walks people to the nearest open store.
Everything that shipped.
Brand identity guide
16 pages — foundations, logo system, usage rules, misuse examples.
Logo system
Primary lockup, wordmark, app icon — with clearspace and minimum sizes.
Colour & typography
Five-colour palette with proportions; Outfit, Work Sans and DM Mono stack.
Voice & tone
Tagline, say/avoid guardrails, bilingual signage line (优超市).
Pin Confetti pattern
Three colorways, tiling rules, and festive flex system for LNY, National Day, Deepavali.
Applications
Signboard, storefront, uniforms, price labels, carrier bags, Grab & delivery-platform kit.
Website design & build
Full redesign and development, aisle-first IA.
4-outlet locator
Store finder with hours, directions and preferred-store enquiry.
Copywriting
Positioning line, page copy, and the bilingual ticker.
Underselling yourself somewhere?
If your business is better than your brand lets on, that's fixable. Tell us what you do — we'll make it look and sound like it.
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