Indie Agency Omelet Cooks Up a Fresh Brand Identity That Finally Plays on Some Breakfast Puns

Omelet, the quirky Los Angeles indie agency that can bring an audience to tears with an ad for a 158-year-old insurance company, has introduced a bolder, more playful brand identity that better defines the shop and its work.

The redesign—which consists of a warmer color palette of red, bright yellow, aqua blue, teal green and lavender—also (quite literally) takes a crack at some of those breakfast puns the agency historically shied away from. The shop said it employed type designer, illustrator and art director Marta Cerdà to give Omelet her signature touch and push the agency outside its comfort zone by convincing it to “own” its Omelet identity and all the breakfast puns that come with it.

The new logo and website prominently feature a crack down the middle to signify both cracked eggshells and the larger disruption happening in the industry, which the agency aims to embrace. The font of the new logo is Roslindale, a new typeface by typographer David Jonathan Ross.

The shop has embraced two quotes to use as its guiding words of wisdom going forward: “All creative effort—including the making of an omelet—is preceded by destruction” by humanistic geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, and “There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in” by the late, great musician Leonard Cohen.

Those quotes breathe new life into the agency’s old motto: “In order to make an Omelet, you’ve got to break a few eggs.”

“There’s so much change happening in our industry and culture at large,” Omelet CMO Sarah Ceglarski told Adweek. “But all those cracks that form, that’s where the really interesting stuff emerges; opportunities to move forward in a new and better way. A better way to make an impact, work with our clients and each other, grow and nurture talent. We’re not getting all the change right, but we are seeking out and trying different things and we’re building a business around it.”

Ceglarski said the redesign follows several recent changes at the agency, including its decision to double the size of its partnership team at the end of the year. “It was a big shift for us. … By having a flat structure, it’s about a team of people coming together with different strengths,” she added.

“Our culture is stronger than ever, our people are incredible, and on top of that we’re having our best year yet from a financial perspective,” Ceglarski said, projecting a net revenue growth of 35 percent for 2018.

At the end of last year, Omelet picked up the creative account of Princess Cruises and released its first work for the cruise line in early 2018, in the form of one of its identifying cinematic films that gave viewers a peek at some of the destinations they can traverse aboard its ships.

The rebrand, which was done in partnership with Denver, Colo.,-based indie shop Legwork Studio, took about three months to design and develop.

The shift follows last year’s departure of Ryan Fey, the last remaining co-founder of Omelet. Fey’s first gig after his departure was a starring role in the Food Network’s reality cooking show The Grill Dads, along with fellow Omelet veteran and former chief experience officer Mark Anderson.

Fey now oversees VaynerMedia’s client services team in L.A. as executive vice president. When he took that position in May, he told Adweek that he “built Omelet to let it live and breathe on its own.”

“I realized I wanted to leave the company when I felt it found its own way,” Fey said at the time. “Sometimes founders can have such big voices, it doesn’t allow the agency to reach its full potential.”

Lindsay Rittenhouse

@kitten_mouse

Lindsay Rittenhouse is a staff writer at Adweek, where she specializes in covering the world of agencies and their clients.