For the longest, the vending machine industry saw a series of templatized replicas - where everything looked like a copy of a copy of a copy. Airports, office spaces, colleges - it felt like vending machines couldn’t look any different. As cliched as it may sound, we decided to break the clutter. 

Our project kicked off with frequent visits to hospitals and coworking spaces. We observed spaces where vending machines were placed and closely observed how users interacted with them. We started talking to an audience set who were frequent fliers and came across vending machines on the way. We picked our research insights and used them to arrive at our strategy.

M2 was the brainchild of Manoj and Mike (hence the name), two vending geeks with years of international retail experience between them. To make the brand more consumer-first, we started with a repositioning exercise that led us to a new name for the brand - Stackd, to further the idea of a vending machine “stacked with quick eatables and sippables.” 

The entire visual language was inspired by a healthy mix of street and pop art. Illustrations were abstract and the colours popped - all conceived to break the monotony.

The work on the website carried forward the visual language from the machine designs. We went on to design an entire set of foundational branding assets - from employee tees to letterheads to visiting cards to menus, where the fun art travelled throughout.

We believe in making brands a part of culture, and STACKD was a beautiful little project where we could make a dent in the templatized industry and turn a few heads along the way.