Nutism

Art movements like to end in -ism. Cubism broke the bottle into planes, Impressionism let the light in, Minimalism took nearly everything out. Nutism proposes a movement of its own, with the nut as its subject and the shelf as its gallery.

The timing makes sense. Snacking is drifting away from the fried, the sugared and the oily, and the nut has waited patiently for decades, usually in a plastic tub by the till. The name gives it a manifesto: the almond deserves a considered pouch, the hazelnut a colour of its own, and the buyer a reason to believe both were grown organically and sourced fairly.

The identity in the sketches does a great deal with very little. A walnut, split down the middle, doubles as the two halves of a brain, and a stem curls out of its base like a sprout. Thought and growth, in one mark. It comes in four colourways, burgundy, ochre, leaf green and roasted brown, and the mock-up pouches put them to work: ochre for whole almonds, green for pumpkin seeds, kraft brown for hazelnuts, burgundy for dried cranberries. A row of them reads like a colour chart.

I like the name most for what it leaves room for. An -ism can host a café, a recipe book or a subscription box without stretching. It sounds like a point of view, and premium food is increasingly bought as one.