Res: Protein Fruit Punch

Services

Innovation
Strategy
VBI
Packaging

Fuel for a New Kind of Athlete

Protein has gone mainstream, but the product offering hasn’t kept up. Despite a global shift toward everyday wellness, focus, and mental stamina, protein drinks are still stuck in the gym: hyper-masculine, performance-obsessed, and wrapped in functional cliché. For a generation looking for calm clarity, not muscle growth, the category offers little.

So we imagined what it could look like instead. A cultural signal – one that redefines protein as fuel for a new kind of athlete: the digital kind. Gamers, streamers, creators, coders. Athletes of focus, not action.

A refreshing fruit punch powered by 8 grams of drinkable protein, designed to keep people locked in – not wired out. Built to reframe what functionality means in a world that’s tired of crash culture and over-hype.

This is a brand made to provoke. It’s a creative experiment designed to show how beverage brands could evolve and how we can help lead that evolution. It exists as a calling card: a visual, strategic, and cultural flex. A way to open doors, spark conversations, and prove that design can do more than just look good, it can predict what’s next.

Res, fuel for a new kind of athlete. A creative experiment designed to show how beverage brands could evolve.

Energy with Byte

“In a world chasing louder, faster energy, Res is a smarter kind of fuel,” says Bailey James, our North American MD. “We wanted to show that by understanding culture and using speculative design – you can push an entire category forward.”

Res lives beyond the can. Every detail is considered. If energy drinks scream for attention, Res is the quiet main character, scrolling across your feed with confidence.

The identity draws on retro gaming iconography, but reinterprets it with clarity and intention. Pixelated graphics are layered with modern energy: saturated flavour-led palettes, iconography pulled from old-school arcades, and a wordmark that pulses with a lo-fi, drop-shadowed gleam. Even the motion system mimics side-scrolling gameplay, while packaging and merch blur the line between nostalgic fun and serious design objects perfectly.

Glen Thorpe, Design Director at Thirst, led the creative direction. “We wanted it to feel nostalgic, but never cheesy. Something that could sit on a Twitch stream, in a gallery, or in a fashion collab. It’s playful with a design language that respects gaming culture, without becoming a gimmick.”