The Ordinary looks deliberately plain — and that plainness is the whole strategy.

The Ordinary’s identity is famously, deliberately plain: a straightforward serif wordmark (often likened to Times New Roman — treat that as a lookalike, not confirmed), set on minimal white and cream labels that read like laboratory or apothecary packaging. The products are named not with marketing poetry but with their actual ingredients and percentages — “Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1%,” “Hyaluronic Acid 2% + B5” — often in plain, near-monospace type. The whole look performs radical transparency: this is skincare stripped of the usual beauty theatre, presented like a chemistry supply. The “un-designed,” clinical plainness is the design — anti-branding used as a powerful brand strategy.

The Ordinary launched in 2016 as a brand within DECIEM, the self-styled “Abnormal Beauty Company,” founded by Brandon Truaxe (with Nicola Kilner). Its mission was disruptive: offer clinically effective skincare ingredients at radically low prices, exposing the beauty industry’s huge mark-ups — “clinical formulations with integrity.” The story has a tragic chapter: Brandon Truaxe died in 2019. On ownership, the key fact: the Estée Lauder Companies took a minority stake in DECIEM in 2017, moved to majority ownership in 2021, and completed full acquisition in 2024 (a ~$1.7bn total) — so The Ordinary, for all its anti-establishment positioning, sits under a beauty giant. That tension (radical-transparency underdog, conglomerate-owned) is part of its modern story.

The Ordinary keeps it clinical white and black. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

The palette is as stripped-back as the philosophy: white and cream grounds with black serif text, the odd putty/neutral — a clean, clinical, laboratory look with essentially no decorative colour. The Ordinary publishes no official brand hex, so treat these neutrals as approximate. The point is restraint: by refusing colour, gloss and ornament, the packaging looks honest, scientific and unpretentious — like a raw ingredient rather than a marketed cosmetic. The plainness signals that your money is going into the formulation, not the packaging, which is the entire value proposition.

The lesson is using visual restraint to communicate honesty and value. The Ordinary’s clinical, colourless, ingredient-labelled packaging tells you — before you read a word — that this is no-nonsense, transparent, science-first skincare, and that you’re not paying for fancy branding. For designers, it’s a striking reminder that less design can be a powerful statement: deliberate plainness, when it aligns with the brand’s values (transparency, affordability, efficacy), reads as integrity rather than cheapness. The takeaways: let restraint carry meaning when honesty is the message; name and label things plainly if transparency is the promise; and remember that in a decorative category, looking clinical and “un-branded” can itself be the most distinctive brand move. As always, treat the neutrals as approximate when no spec is published.

The type is plain and serif — clinical honesty over marketing polish.

The Ordinary’s plain serif wordmark (Times-New-Roman-like, though unconfirmed) is doing something clever: an ordinary, almost default-looking serif signals “no marketing spin here.” Set against the ingredient-and-percentage product names in plain, near-monospace type, it reads like a scientific document or a pharmacy label rather than a beauty brand — which is exactly the honest, transparent, clinical impression The Ordinary wants. The refusal to use a fancy custom typeface is itself the statement: the brand looks like it spent nothing on looking good, so it must have spent everything on the formula. Plain type as a promise of integrity.

The Ordinary made plainness a revolution in beauty branding.

The Ordinary is a landmark case of design philosophy as brand strategy. By deliberately stripping away beauty’s usual theatre — no glossy packaging, no aspirational names, no decorative colour — and replacing it with clinical plainness and ingredient-percentage labelling, it made radical transparency visible and turned “un-branding” into one of the most distinctive brands in skincare. The look communicates the entire proposition (honest, effective, affordable) at a glance, and it disrupted an industry built on markups and mystique. Ironically, that anti-marketing aesthetic became a hugely powerful marketing tool — the plainness is unmistakable.

For designers, The Ordinary offers a provocative lesson: restraint and “anti-design” can be the boldest, most strategic choice. When a brand’s values are transparency, honesty and efficacy over image, an identity that looks clinical, plain and un-marketed communicates those values more powerfully than any polished design could — and stands out precisely by refusing the category’s conventions. The takeaways: align your level of design with your brand’s actual promise (if you sell honesty and value, look honest and unfussy); use plain, functional naming and typography when transparency is the point; and recognise that in a decorative, high-markup category, deliberate plainness can be radical and memorable. The Ordinary turned a plain serif, a white bottle and an ingredient list into a revolution — proof that sometimes the most powerful branding is the kind that looks like no branding at all.

Keep The Ordinary’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.