Ancient wisdom, modern mark: the identity for SŌM’s daily elixir shots — The Brand Identity – Home of the Greatest in Graphic & Brand Design
SŌM is a Belgian brand of functional elixirs, and its flagship – the SŌM Power Elixir – is a daily shot for steady energy and mental clarity. It blends traditional ingredients from Colombia, including chontaduro and pitaya, with modern formulation. “The Colombian origin isn’t something we layered on at the end; it’s why the product exists,” explains Founder Laurenzo Van Mello.
SŌM’s founders spent two years getting the formula right before bringing in Ljubljana-based creative collective .raw to create the identity. For the brand, mental performance is the foundation rather than physical output, moving it away from the sports drink category. “We needed an identity that was honest about what we’d built rather than borrowing the visual language of a category we don’t belong to,” Van Mello tells us. “SŌM comes from SOMA, the ancient sacred ritual drink, and also stands for State of Mind,” he adds.
The visual anchor for the identity is a concept called Focused Stillness, which .raw’s Founder & CEO Tamir Morris Grays describes as a brand direction that “sits at the intersection of natural vitality and contemporary mysticism.”
“We pulled from references that know how to communicate an internal feeling: modern apothecary, fragrance, premium skincare. Those categories don’t show effort – they suggest a state. That’s the right territory for SŌM,” Grays explains. “‘Modern elixir from ancient wisdom’ is a real line from the brand – and it only works if the identity actually looks like it means it.”
The photography ranges from macro details to fog, woods and blurred motion, pairing human intimacy with natural atmospheres under a modern, dream-like light. The tone is “minimal and precise, but not cold,” he notes. “There’s genuine warmth in the cultural origins.” When it came to picturing that origin, “the temptation is always a map, a plant, a landscape,” he continues. “We kept the Colombian origin in the product story and let the visual language carry the atmosphere – the texture and ritual of that culture, rather than depicting it.”
The primary mark is made up of a geometric symbol, wordmark and the ‘State of Mind’ tagline, with a modular approach that allows the latter two components to drop out when needed. The typography combines Commercial Type’s Druk Heavy with Dinamo’s sans serif ABC Diatype, which is used for longer reading. The biggest challenge, Grays tells us, was “making sure ‘mystical’ didn’t tip into precious or inaccessible. Ritual can tip into something you admire from a distance rather than use every day; that’s the wrong outcome for a daily product. Druk Heavy on product names pulled it back. It’s a heavy, intense typeface. It grounds everything and makes the brand feel immediate rather than untouchable.” He adds that “each product also has its own colour, so the system stays unified while the range feels distinct across Power, Balance, Beauty, Vitality and Core.”
The SŌM Power Elixer comes in single-dose ampoules. “The ampoule format creates a natural pause. You have to hold it, break it open deliberately. That’s already a ritual and our job was to make the object worthy of that moment,” Grays explains. Beyond the main brand symbol, .raw designed a geometric icon for each elixir. “They’re minimal, slightly mystical in character and built on a construction grid that keeps them precise and consistent at every scale. They give the object something to say before anyone reads a word,” he concludes.