Chris Chapman’s identity for Agua de Madre fizzes with joy, memory, and typographic excess

Agua de Madre, brewed in small batches in East London, is a ‘water kefir,’ a fizzy, delicious soda-style drink that doesn’t just taste good, but is very beneficial for the gut. The name ‘Agua de Madre’ is a nod to the so-called ‘mother’ culture used in the fermentation process. Although the drink is imbued with serious health benefits, the act of enjoying its effervescent goodness is ultimately one of joy, and this had to be bottled in its reimagined identity, which was crafted by designer Chris Chapman. “Most of the research went into understanding the category, and then deliberately avoiding its tropes,” Chapman tells us. “Kombucha and gut-health drinks often look relatively minimal. We wanted the opposite: something packed with spirit and colour.” To add to this, Chapman decided to perfectly balance a bit of the old and the new. For example, he crafted the wordmark based on the original logo of the brand, refining it rather than starting from scratch, “partly to retain familiarity, and partly because it already had charm and confidence,” he says. He also decided to keep the original logo of a smiling ‘madre,’ which proudly accompanies the wordmark. “She was one of the few elements retained from the original identity,” he adds. “While everything else changed, this illustration had built some equity – and more than that, she felt essential. A maternal, welcoming presence. It’s rare that a logo actually adds emotion, but this one did, so we kept it.” To offset the old with the new, Chapman leaned on a heavily typographic design language, injecting fresh life into the brand. The task at hand was to capture the essence of the drink, almost teasing the taste and character of Agua de Madre, but as Chapman says, “Taste is hard to visualise, especially with a drink that many haven’t tried. But expressive type can be a shortcut to flavour. We clashed different nostalgia-coded fonts together to suggest the fizz of soda, of joy – but also hopefully something that felt slightly different and new.”