A dip in history: Lukas Diemling looks back at Ladler’s heritage to rebrand the Ice Stock maker — The Brand Identity – Home of the Greatest in Graphic & Brand Design

‘Stick shooting’ is a beloved sport in the Alpine region that showcases the skill and precision of sliding a stick across a frozen surface towards a target, much like the sport of curling. In a similar vein, Ice Stock Shooting is another widely beloved sport in the region, where players utilise sticks crafted from high-quality pear or maple wood, featuring a sturdy wrought iron ring, and a carefully crafted wooden stem made from birch or ash wood.

Ladler Ice Stocks, a family-run company from Austria, has been producing high-quality ice stocks and accessories for the sport since 1963. They offer bespoke ice stocks and tournament sticks tailored to the needs of players, using handmade products and their understanding of player requirements. To mark a generational switch, Ladler was redesigned, while still maintaining a sense of tradition and authenticity that nods to the brand’s history.

Based in Graz, Austria, independent graphic designer Lukas Diemling took a straightforward approach to the brand direction, heralded by a bold wordmark to reflect the sporty and competitive environment of the product. The letter ‘L’ in the wordmark is an abstraction of Ice Stocks, aiming to evoke a retro feeling fitting for the legacy sport brand. Diemling explains, “I have always been a sucker for old school wordmarks that have that quirky feeling that makes them so special. As I looked back at the brand’s history, it felt right to maintain that feeling.” To achieve this, Diemling chose Dinamo’s Ginto Nord, inspired by classic typefaces like Antique Olive Nord. He also used Milieu Grotesque’s Patron as a highly legible complementary pairing for the wordmark throughout all brand applications and touchpoints.

To maintain consistency with the existing range of products, which have had assigned colours since 1963, the brand decided to retain that palette. They made slight adjustments to the hierarchy and tweaked the saturation of some of the colours. For the key brand colour, they chose a bright shade of red to grab attention, and differentiate Ladler from its competitors. Across the brand system, the red is complemented by other hues pulled from the product range, tying in the rebrand with a chromatic palette loyal customers would immediately associate with Ladler’s range of products.