During tough economic times ‘cost reduction’ is often a key driver for brand owners/retailers and, therefore, sustainability issues are often brushed under the carpet. In my opinion, however, the idea of cutting costs and creating greener packaging can sit by side on the agenda, even when times are tough.
The use of raw materials in the manufacture of packaging is simply not sustainable. It’s as simple as that, we are running out. We can fool ourselves that this isn’ the case but we’re all responsible for making our resources last for as long as possible.The designs we create for our clients – although based on a client brief – have some latitude in terms of the number of components that are used, the materials specified, the numbers of colours used and the effects employed. The ideas we come up with often dictate the end complexity and our clients trust us – as the experts – to come up with designs that will ultimately sell more products. We must therefore work with, and not against, our clients in their drive to reduce packaging complexity.
It is apparent to me that most designers tend to ‘over-dress’ their ideas, believing that more components, additional layering and detail make their designs stronger and better at standing out from the crowd – style over substance perhaps? With their focus being largely on creating beautiful, award-winning packs, rarely do they think about the impact that their design will have on the environment,
Well, my belief is that big ideas – GREAT ideas – don’t need dressing up and the notion of ‘simplifying to amplify’ – one of our mantras at LFH - should be central to our thinking.
With a keenness to make their mark, clients often get caught up in the ‘over-dressing’ of their brands and it is in this area where the agency can really add value by putting forward brilliant ideas – rather than effects – to help make our clients brands successful ones.
Don’t get me wrong, I fully support high quality packaging design – that’s how LFH became a top ten-design agency with a reputation for great ideas supported with quality consultancy; we produce highly creative solutions that are brilliantly executed. But we do think differently; now, I would like to share with you some of the great designs and ideas that demonstrate my point.
Carlsberg – Okocim
Our brief was to relaunch Okocim with a revitalised brand identity, bottle structure and packaging design that would build upon the brand’s historic roots. We found a way to communicate the brand’s values and personality through a new brand marque within a simple neck label, with an updated bottle structure that echoes the rounded, smooth lines of that marque together with use of embossing techniques that balances the brand’s richness, authenticity and heritage with a more contemporary and stylish feel. The new bottle restores a sense of stature, pride and refinement to the brand. An added benefit of our consultancy is a harmonized and fixed six-colour palette which allows for the different labels to be printed together,
Wenneker Distilleries – Liqueurs
Wenneker invited us to redesign both the brand’s graphics and glass bottle structure, a key aspect of the brief being to reduce packaging complexity – and cost of goods – wherever possible. A generic illustration was created and re-coloured to represent each of the specific flavor variants; this worked in harmony with the new clear glass bottle structure which allowed the vibrant liquid colours to further communicate the flavour variants. The previous packaging used a specific spot colour for each of the variants meaning over 41 colours were used to print the full range. The new design benefits from a harmonized and fixed six-colour palette which allows for the different designs to be printed together.
Coca Cola
The global success of its ‘Happiness Factory‘ TV commercial – in which Coca-Cola brought to life the world inside a vending machine – was largely attributed to the fact that consumers fell in love with the characters and their imaginary world. From this, came the brief for promotional packaging that would bring that world to life. Created as a series of limited edition aluminium bottles for the Belgian market, we took four of thekey characters and integrated them into existing Coke packaging design elements.
As you might know, dry-offset printing is notoriously unsympathetic to photographic and fine-detailed designs and so, building on our reputation for strong design delivery, we also found solutions to the print and production challenges of the project. Working closely with our in-house production experts and the printers, we delivered not only an inspiring design but also one that could be beautifully realised on shelf.
This is my ‘call to arms’ to design agencies and industry associations: We have a responsibility to advise our clients to use our natural resources wisely and to support that by presenting them with great ideas that are brilliantly expressed via the use of less packaging, not more.
Author: Graham Hawkins, Managing Director
