Bendita Gloria's pickle stall identity is utterly brilliant and slightly bonkers

Whether you’re a gherkin lover or a fastidious type who sits carefully peeling the little green things from between burger buns, there’s no denying just how awesome the identity for this Madrid pickle stall is. Barcelona-based graphic design studio Bendita Gloria is behind the look for the stall, named Bombas, Lagartos y Cohetes, which joyfully translates as Bombs, Lizards and Rockets. Owned by Kike Martínez, it specialises in “banderillas” – little morsels of different deli foods skewered together.

It’s these creations that gave the stall its name – it was thought that giant stuffed olives resembled the bombs, stuffed gherkins the lizards, and longer skewers of all sorts of goodies are the rockets. According to Bendita Gloria, this imaginative take on things was a reaction to these finger foods being seen as “not very refined.” The studio explains: “Kike decided to change this; to rethink this local finger-food and make it better than ever before.”

In creating the identity, the studio looked to the strange nuances of the stall’s Vallecas surroundings for inspiration. “Vallecas is a working-class neighbourhood in Madrid with a long countercultural and rebellious tradition,” explains Bendita Gloria. “At some point in the 80s, they started to slightly rename their quarter as Vallekas (written with a transgressive ‘k’). This unofficial name has also evolved in the abbreviation VK, often used as a monogram that symbolises kind of a neighbourhood-patriotism.”

As such, it took the V and K to form the logo mark for the brand, which appears like a little flag on packaging and other touchpoints. However for us, the real star of the branding is the gloriously bright photography by Marçal Vaquer and art directed by Bendita Gloria. There’s very much a fashion editorial feel to the imagery in all its Warholian repetition, bold colours and the way the banderillas are made to look almost synthetic, and we can’t get enough of it.