The Apprentice logo challenge - s19 ep8 hot sauce
21st March 2025
posted 21st March 2025
We're at Episode 8 of The Apprentice, and this week, things heated up! The task was all about creating a new hot sauce brand, but instead of bringing the fire, some of the designs left us feeling a little mild.
In this blog, We'll dive into the logos from The Apprentice Series 19, episode 8. We'll explain this week's task, see where it all went wrong (or maybe right), and take on the challenge with a quick redesign.
The Task
For this week's task, the teams had to create and brand a new hot sauce, film a TV advert, and then pitch it to industry experts. After feedback, Lord Sugar decides who wins.
Team 1 - Bangin' Sauce
Team 1 attempted to bring the heat with Bangin' Sauce, a fiery hot sauce flavoured with tomato, honey, and Carolina Reaper. Their choice to use the world's hottest pepper was a bold one, it certainly packed a punch.
Image: Bangin' Sauce Logo design
Image: Bangin' Sauce bottle design
Text: The logo features a bold sans-serif font, a smart choice for the design. Sans-serif fonts are known for their strength, confidence, and impact, effectively showing the idea of a powerful hot sauce with a bold, intense flavour. They have added a pop art-style drop shadow and explosion around the text; this is a fun touch. However, it's poorly executed and lacks the punch and energy needed to truly stand out.
Colour: The logo uses red, pink, green, and black. Red is full of energy and excitement, which suits a bold hot sauce. The pink adds warmth and playfulness to the design, which might not be the best choice for something super spicy. Green is calm and linked to health, which doesn't match the intensity of hot sauce. Black is strong, bold, and mysterious, making it a great choice for an experimental sauce; this should have been featured more heavily for a more impactful design.
Design: Overall, the bottle design feels underwhelming. While it's the stronger of the two designs featured in the episode and includes some good ideas, like the pop art-style "bang", the use of pink as the main colour for the label makes it look a bit washed out. It doesn't convey the boldness or spiciness of the sauce, and it also reduces the contrast of the logo, making it harder to stand out.
Team 1 - Redesign
For our redesign of the Bangin' sauce, we wanted to give it more punch!
Image: Bangin' Sauce redesign
Image: Bangin' Sauce bottle redesign
Design: The company name, "Bangin' Sauce," with the "G" dropped, suggests a playful, informal vibe. To reflect this fun approach, a bold, illustrative design is used, with the name placed inside a stick of dynamite. The dynamite is angled off-kilter to enhance the sense of energy and excitement.
Fonts: A bold sans-serif font with a slight distressed effect was chosen to complement the illustrative style of the dynamite, giving it a loud and impactful feel. The font was customised to align with the shape of the dynamite, enhancing the overall design.
Colour: Red was the natural choice for the brand, symbolizing heat, danger, and boldness. A bright orange highlight on the spark adds a playful touch. The colours are kept simple with minimal detail in the illustration to ensure the logo remains bold, straightforward, and impactful.
Team 2 - Umami Mami
Team 2 served up 'Umami Mami', a mild, Asian fusion-inspired hot sauce. Blending the mild fruity heat of Scotch Bonnet peppers with mango. From the consumer feedback, it didn't taste all too pleasant.
Image: Umami Mami Logo design
Image: Umami Mami bottle design
Text: Like the other team, they also chose a sans-serif font. Sans-serif fonts are bold, clear, and confident, making them a great fit for a hot sauce. The font weight isn't too heavy, which better reflects the mild heat of the flavour. However, the text lacks styling, making it feel a bit bland.
Colour: For the colours, they chose yellow, pink and white. Yellow is a vibrant, high-energy colour that's perfect for hot sauce, as it grabs attention and conveys warmth and excitement. In Indian culture, yellow is linked to prosperity, spirituality, and celebration, making it a fitting choice for a bold and flavourful sauce. Pink, however, is warm, sweet, and playful, which adds a light-hearted touch but doesn't strongly align with the intensity expected from hot sauce. White is often associated with purity, cleanliness, and simplicity, having a calming effect, which can somewhat tone down the fiery nature typically associated with hot sauce.
Design: The bottle design is brighter and bolder than the other teams, but the yellow and white colour combination lacks contrast, which dulls the overall impact. While the black outline around the logo text helps, it doesn't create enough contrast to make the text stand out. The design leans heavily into an Asian aspect of the product, which is great, but it doesn't emphasise the heat element of the sauce. As a result, it gives the impression of a sweeter sauce rather than one with a bold, fiery flavour.
Team 2 - Redesign
For our redesign of the Umami Mami, we wanted to play more on the Asian element of the hot sauce.
Image: Umami Mami redesign
Image: Umami Mami bottle redesign
Logo Text: The logomark and label text have been designed in a stylised sans-serif font. The bold uppercase lettering gives the brand an upscale feel, while the angled lines and curved edges evoke an "Asian" aesthetic, aligning with the product's theme.
Label: The label design incorporates 'Mandala' patterns, which are common in Indian culture, to tie the branding and packaging together. The pattern borders the top and bottom of the label, framing the logo in the centre for a balanced and subtle design.
Colour: The text and logomark are deep purple, which symbolises luxury and royalty. The gold accents add a touch of sophistication. The rich colours against a white background give the design a premium, elegant look.
Did you miss previous designs?
Didn't you catch our logo designs from previous episodes? You can find them here:
The Apprentice logo challenge - s19 ep5 Virtual pop star
The Apprentice logo challenge - s19 ep5 Easter Eggs
The Apprentice logo challenge - s19 ep5 Kids' Bank