Client

Arcus

Industry

Healthcare
Consumer Electronics

Deliveries

Brand Strategy
Visual Identity
Design Systems

Exploring the Spirit of the North

Arcus initiated Arcus Project as an experimental platform dedicated to exploration, craftsmanship, and innovation beyond traditional commercial product development. The ambition was to create a new category of expression within Nordic spirits – rooted in nature, distillation expertise, and a more conceptual approach to taste and origin.

The first project, Arcus Project No. 1, set out to capture the essence of the Nordic landscape through a series of carefully selected biotopes across Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.

Translating Nature into Systematic Craft

Working closely with herbal expert Søren Espersen and Master Distiller Lars Kragelund, botanicals were hand-picked from distinct Nordic environments including the Swedish forest, Norwegian Finnmark, and the Danish heath. Through fractional distillation, individual elements such as climate, soil, temperature, and vegetation were isolated and transformed into refined spirit fractions representing each location.

LOOP Associates developed the conceptual framework and packaging system surrounding the project. Rather than following the handcrafted and rustic aesthetics common within the category, the identity deliberately embraced a more clinical and laboratory-inspired expression – highlighting precision, experimentation, and distillation expertise.

The visual system combined a restrained bottle design with blue laboratory references, wax seals, technical narratives, and naming conventions based on the longitude of each botanical origin.

The framework was designed to simplify implementation while ensuring consistency across a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Designed Beyond Commercial Constraints

The project was never intended as a traditional commercial product line. Instead, Arcus Project functioned as a platform for experimentation, allowing new ideas, techniques, and sensory expressions to be explored outside conventional market expectations.

This created a rare level of creative freedom where concept, process, and storytelling became as important as the product itself.

A Conceptual Approach to Nordic Spirits

Arcus Project No. 1 blurred the boundaries between product design, sensory experimentation, and brand storytelling. While only produced in extremely limited quantities, elements from the project would later influence future product development and communication within the broader Arcus portfolio.

The result was a highly distinctive expression of Nordic craftsmanship – positioning Arcus not as artisanal nostalgia, but as modern distillation expertise grounded in experimentation, precision, and the spirit of the north.

“We want to stand out as the experts. All others are either ‘crafted/hand-made’ or ‘Scandinavian clean.’ We embrace our industrial heritage and work in lab coats. We are not hipsters – we are professionals.”

— Arcus