As you’ll know from our blog, our packaging is a work in progress. Having my own food production business has really made me focus on other food product packaging: materials, shapes, graphics and different solutions to the age-old dilemma of, “What exactly do I put this in?”
I saw so, so many gorgeous types of packaging on my trip, I just had to share some trends which appealed to me. Forget food – it’s packaging for thought.
EPICERIE BOULUD
This deli is Daniel Boulud’s latest project, and while the products all looked very interesting, it was the clean, simple packaging that caught my eye. I’ve never been very fond of pastels, but this duck egg blue logo made everything look classic and elegant, from meringues to paper coffee cups.
PAPER PACKAGING
Loving the use of packaging for everything from sweets to pasta. Very old school and really eye-catching.
COLOURS
I’m definitely leaning towards a more muted palette for food branding. How surprising (and gorgeous) is the lilac crisps packet???
SCREWTOP LIDS
I’m absolutely hopeless at opening childproof or temper evident lids, so all these screwtop containers really appealed to me. Especially the screwtop ice cream container!
I notice that the two packaging designs you particularly comment on – Boulud and the lilac crisp packet, both use old fashioned outlined typefaces – old style, but with something of a modern twist…
Lori, you’ve got a good eye, I didn’t even notice that! When we were designing our logo, we discovered Albin Holmqvist’s video and photo work for which expresses different cultures and cities through the use of fonts. I think his campaign was the main inspiration for our blog header, and our decision to go with gill sans as our official ‘Creamery font’. Hard to beat clean-cut classics.
Yeah – I’m a graphic designer (or as my kids confirm: typography nerd).
Gill Sans is a fantastic type face. I have used it a lot for various clients. I like the style of your brand.
Thanks Lori! We’ve been lucky in that our brand development has evolved quite naturally with our company. I initially wanted to use Minion as our ‘company’ typeface, as it ties me a really valuable internship I had in California, but we needed something very clean to balance our logo and use of images, preferably sans serif, and Gill Sans is so iconic, and I’ve always loved the London Railway signs. I’d be a typography nerd if I had more time for non-food-related interests!!!
I think anything recyclable would be awesome, so we could wash it and bring it back, or re purpose it elsewhere in our homes.
Annamarie, our current containers are recyclable and reusable plastic – and a couple customers have even sent us cute photos of the ways in which they’ve repurposed it (kids’ lunch, storing lentils, storing different size nails, etc). But they are not particularly hard-wearing, so we’re currently looking at other solutions with freezer grade plastic. We’ll be blogging about this in another week or two, once we’ve figured out what direction we’re going in, but sadly it looks like we’ll need to import.
I’m right behind you with the packaging, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bought something because I loooove the packaging, lots of which has found a home on the pinboard or stuck in a book for future inspiration. I must also say, don’t care what the packaging looks like, nothing will stop me buying lemoncurd or peanut butter icecream!
Julie, we appreciate your loyalty to lemon curd and peanut butter! And I know they appreciate it too 😉
Although it would be nice to have packaging that’s as delicious as the contents! Our office is littered with interesting packaging we’ve picked up all over the world, for inspiration; I think it’s getting a bit out of control!