Pets at Home is a United Kingdom pet care retailer founded in 1991 by Anthony Preston, with its first store opened in Chester.[1] The company operates more than 450 stores across the UK, along with grooming salons and veterinary practices.[2] In April 2023, the company launched a new brand identity designed by London studio Nomad, unifying its retail, veterinary, grooming, insurance and foundation services under a single master brand.[3]
Design and History
The 2023 rebrand was driven by a need to address confusion caused by the company’s varied sub-brand identities, which had grown apart in recognition from the primary Pets at Home brand.[2] Nomad’s creative director Ash Watkins stated that the objective was to create a system uniting a world of disparate pet care brands under a single visual identity.[4]
The new identity centres on the word “Pets” as the primary brand name, with the bold new logo serving as an anchor point for the family of sub-brands.[2] The wordmark features bold, curved letterforms with tightly compacted spacing, giving it a warmer, more huggable visual character.[5] Nomad added calligraphic flourishes to the logo, warming up the overall appearance.[4]
As part of the rebrand, the veterinary service formerly known as Vets4Pets was renamed Vets for Pets, and the grooming service became Pets Grooming, with both trading under the uniform Pets identity.[3] The company’s official history records the launch of the new consumer brand in 2023.[1]
Meaning and Symbolism
The letter “P” in the new wordmark extends leftward into a subtle tail-like flourish, giving the logo an “animalistic angle” according to Watkins.[6] The tail is intentionally generic enough that it could belong to either a cat or a dog, avoiding being too prescriptive for pet owners.[7]
The recognisable Pets at Home green was refreshed to feel more modern while retaining the brand’s heritage. Nomad’s creative director explained that the green plays a huge role in the identity, and the team wanted to retain it while modernising the palette, making “Pets green” more iconic rather than simply a background colour.[8] The refreshed palette also made the green suitable for use on dark green backgrounds.[9]
Nomad also developed a graphic system inspired by paw prints and fingerprints, drawing on “the connection of people and their pets” to express the relationship between owners and their animals throughout the identity.[4]
Typography and Design
Nomad worked with font foundry Colophon to commission two custom typefaces for the new identity.[2] The first, Pets Headline, was designed for use across every channel in the brand world, balancing expressiveness with a sense of trustworthiness so it could work for everything from weekly promotions to clinical care advice.[2] The typeface features a rounded serif style with distinctive character.[9]
The second custom typeface, Pets Sub Brand, is used exclusively for denoting sub-brands alongside the Pets wordmark. It features tail-flick descenders and sloped-top ascenders, designed to embody the same character quirks as the logo.[6]
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