OKTO’s brand for Academic Work finds harmony in the unexpected, just like peanut butter and pickles

A pioneer in Sweden’s recruitment sector, Academic Work has gone from strength to strength over the past few years. They have not only led the country’s staffing and recruitment industry – specialising in assisting newly graduated talent to find their match with roles – but have also expanded their reach to Denmark, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, and Germany. With this expansion already in motion, their image needed to keep pace, so they turned to the Stockholm-based brand agency OKTO to bring their interdisciplinary approach to align with the expansion efforts across the European market.

Humans are wonderfully complex, and OKTO’s solution celebrates this by moving away from procedural box-ticking and skills matching. Instead, it embraces the idea of discovering that which is “symmetrical yet off-kilter, unexpected yet brilliant, unpredictable yet aligned.” According to Creative Director Linus Östberg, this concept springs from the unexpected yet popular combination of peanut butter and pickles – “a pairing that appears strange but surprisingly fits well.” This analogy represents Academic Work’s evidence-based recruiting strategy; aligning candidates with roles in ways that surpass typical expectations while still making perfect sense.

The design process began with one of the biggest challenges for even one of the most experienced designers, Östberg tells us – kerning ‘A’ and ‘W.’ “We focused on finding a way for these two letters to align perfectly, avoiding the common pitfalls of pairing them.” The symbol, a visual puzzle of sorts, uses a slash cut and negative space between the two letters to illustrate how the incomplete ‘A’ and ‘W’ perfectly complement each other. “In a way, we solved a typographic challenge that has existed since the early days of printing,” he continues. “The result is a logo that is not only functional but also visually engaging – rewarding the viewer with a subtle ‘aha’ moment upon closer inspection.”

This concept of juxtaposition consistently appears within the visual language. For example, OKTO sought out wonderfully surprising and playful imagery rooted in unconventional similarities – think the bevelled blocks of a chocolate bar and keyboard, the airy, bubbly texture of sponges and honeycomb, and the structured pattern of fish scales mirroring that of a corn cob.

According to Östberg, the colour and typography are designed to be “Seriously Playful” – balancing the identity’s humour-tinged levity with the sincerity and esteemed expertise for which Academic Work is known. For instance, a rich forest green serves as the brand’s key colour, offsetting the bright candy hues. The wordmark, set in My Creative Land’s Peachi, a relatively unknown but distinctive typeface, perfectly captures this unique contrast. “For the more functional aspects of the typography, we needed a typeface that was simple yet visually connected to the headline font,” he notes. “We selected Displaay Type Foundry’s Jokker for its similarities in letter shapes, x-height, and overall expression. While it is a highly functional sans serif, it still carries a lot of character, making it both modern and practical.”

As a digital-first brand system, the motion system is built on three foundational principles – The Angle, Alignment, and Tempo – that define the brand’s recognisability. “The goal was to capture that magic moment when everything clicks – when two worlds align to create ‘The Perfect Fit,’” explains Östberg. These principles are executed through various movement techniques like Spin, Split, and Wipe, all of which are comprehensively documented in the brand guidelines to maintain consistency.