Otherwhere Collective’s identity for TOCA is a showcase of typographic elegance and Minion Pro genitals

Combining the allure and sexual liberation of 60s psychedelia and the welcome increasing openness of contemporary sexual conversations – looking to demolish existing expectations and shame felt towards sexual pleasure – NYC design practice Otherwhere Collective have gone no holds barred with their identity for TOCA. Drawing from inspiration ranging from 70s glitz to vintage pornography and space disco, the CBD-infused lubricant takes its name from the Spanish word for ‘touch,’ and makes up an affirmative, positive and enthusiastic line of products created for all genders, sexualities and bodies. The resulting identity consists of two primary elements; the typography and the imagery – both of which are as considered and strong as one another. Interested in designing something to challenge creative and provocative expectation, the collage-style imagery of the identity adroitly and artfully removes directly explicit aspects of photographs, resulting in something that responds to censorship, whilst being equally erotic and suggestive. “The client had said they wanted to make some noise and talk about things considered taboo,” Creative Director Andrew Bellamy explains, “so that was a green light to break out of the cliché botanicals photography and be a bit more subversive and incendiary.” Focusing on sex, plants and space – although “not necessarily all present at once,” Bellamy adds – the image-making concept and process was deeply rooted in the brand’s core principles, making both direct and allusive connections to the products and what they provide. Using some images from NASA’s Hubble telescope archives, Bellamy explains “they show a cosmic side that comes from the CBD and the enhanced euphoria at climax, and generally the client’s vocabulary when they describe the product,” whilst in a much more grounded sense, other imagery was stripped from vintage porn magazines. “It was important to the client and ourselves to make images inclusive, so it’s not just one colour skin or one sex or sexual preference,” Bellamy adds, crafting diverse and inclusive images that turn photographs that once were quite unpleasant into something “suggestively erotic and even romantic.”