% Chocolate

“The percentage of cocoa in chocolate is a pretty reliable indicator of where it sits on the sweet to bitter scale, more so than descriptions such as milk, semisweet, or bittersweet. It’s how most customers navigate through the craft chocolate scene, hence why we have seen brands plaster their packaging with percentages. Percentage Chocolate explores how this can be done elegantly in keeping with the essence of craft chocolate.  

The answer? A circle. 

Circles are a common occurrence in nature- the rings of a tree, nuts, oranges, mushrooms, and peppercorns-all of these flavor profiles are also found in chocolate. Chocolate has over 600 flavor compounds, and letting it melt uncovers these hidden complexities, flavors, and aromas.

Percentage chocolate creates a range of chocolate from creamy milk chocolate to dark. Milk and dark are differentiated by the use of silver foil instead of gold and a lighter selection of colors. The colors are earthy, and we toned down the vibrancy for more of a soothing effect. Purple in consumers’ minds means chocolate, so, of course, we honored that color in our line up.

Hot sauce

Truffle hot sauce sounds like some next-level condiment action, and that’s just what LA-based branding and design agency Colony created for Truff:

Using the hero ingredient as a design element, we created a geometric truffle mark that eventually became the custom bottle top, representing the product differentiator and furthering the brand story. Complementing the custom form factor with clean type and subtle foil application, we created a package that had the tactile experience the team was looking for, individuality to align with the product formulation, and visual impact to read in small images and the digital environment.

4Life Mineral Water

Can you combine animals on a water bottle and have it side-step that youthful pitfall? 4Life water has the answer and it is yes — from the clean blue lines to the beautiful animals that adorn the bottles to the way the animals interact with the lines; casting shadows, swimming within them to cause ripples. It’s a subtle effect that adds a level of intrigue to a water bottle design. 

The package illustration is to convey how the animals live their lives with the water. The wavy lines and animals explain about the animals living with the water resource. For example the flamingo flying, the tiger swimming and the crocodile crawling in the wavy lines which represent the beauty of water waves.

Vegan Skin care range

Dermica is the vegan skin care range for Norway’s largest pharmacy chain Apotek1, and Goods has helped with strategy, identity and packaging design for the newly rebranded and restructured range. 

The new packaging features bio-based plastics in tubes and bottles and offers more refill solutions (which ends up reducing the environmental footprint by 80%). Transparent plastics have been chosen where possible as it is the easiest and most valuable plastic after recycling, and to highlight the natural ingredients of Dermica.

Kellogg’s breakfast waffles

Kellogg’s latest trio of breakfast goodies includes Birthday Cake, Unicorn, and Mermaid waffles, though, surprisingly, they don’t carry Eggo’s branding. Birthday Cake is flavored just like its namesake with added sprinkles, Unicorns are cotton candy-flavored, and Mermaids are blueberry-flavored. The frozen waffles are just as colorful as they are sweet, and a far cry from the standard and mostly sad-looking frozen waffle, but not by much.

The packaging for the new waffles are certainly much better looking and features bold and whimsical typography, fun illustrations, and playful color palettes. The Unicorn’s box is purple-dominated, with a winking mythical beast within the clouds. The last letter in Mermaid wraps under the entire word, turning into a siren’s tail, while Birthday Cake uses a nostalgic custom type with a candle subbing in for a lowercase “i.” The execution is a laser-focused punch of pretty, so good luck prying these from a Disney Princess-obsessed kid’s grubby mitts.

ESCO coffee

The packaging for Esco Coffee is an exercise in letting your brand be fun while practicing sustainability. Available in either a plastic-free pouch or tube, the different roasts feature funky illustrated elements, which highlight various features of their origin, that compliment the brand’s uniform black top of the packaging. 

As a new local coffee shop, ESCO certainly must look different when consumers first come in contact with the service and quality of ESCO coffee products. Picked, processed, and roasted by the family of coffee farmers themselves, of course, ESCO wants to provide the best quality of local coffee brew that leaves an impression on its customers’ tongues. ESCO offers natural coffee products, planted, picked, and processed by the owner of ESCO himself so that ESCO is confident that its coffee products have a competitive value. We made ESCO packaging designs in two versions, coffee pouch for 200gr and paper tube for 100gr coffee. The ESCO packagings are all eco-green support, no plastic, and sustainable. The concept of ESCO packaging design is to convey a natural, fresh look, with a fun combination of tropical abstract patterns and color palettes.

Hand Sanitiser ads

Thanks to coronavirus, a new creative category is on the rise – hand sanitiser advertising. As more and more of us stash bottles in our bags, brands are going to be under increasing pressure to get noticed in a crowded category. So it makes sense that both Dettol and Lifebuoy have invested in major ad campaigns, but it’s interesting to note the different directions each has taken.

Lifebuoy’s Bish, Bash, Bosh campaign , which comprises a flm and outdoor ads with illustrations by Dan Woodger.

It’s fun, and God knows we all need some of that after months of frightening news and warning notices about social distancing. Making hand sanitiser playful and engaging must have been a tough brief, but Mullenlowe and Woodger have pulled it off in impressive fashion.

The illustrations are punchy, and work as well as static outdoor ads as they do in a gross-out animation that reminds us why we all need sanitiser in the first place.

The Body Coach

Joe Wicks became the nation’s PE teacher during those early months of national lockdown. And as a second lockdown descended upon England last month, again Wicks was there not only with his daily 30 minute PE sessions, but he also released a new YouTube series to get us exercising. The Body Coach brand has carved out a space of unrelenting energy and positivity, and it’s continued to flourish during a time where moving and exercising has, for many, been the only light in a very dark year. 

To help bring the app to life, Nikki enlisted the help of design and tech studio Ustwo and design agency Koto, who’d already worked on the rebrand of the Body Coach earlier in the year. “It was vital the work we did captured [Joe’s] infectious energy, the positivity which makes Joe the success he is,” says creative director and founder of Koto, James Greenfield on the key features of the rebrand. “So we took the bright colours the brand already used and then added a graphic layer built around this, with every element feeling like it moved. From a logo that is active, warm and approachable to a graphic language that utilises ‘hites’ (the active lines used in animation and comics to denote movement) to typography that isn’t just a standard cold typeface.” 

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Fuchs says the project was more than the product for them as it was also about establishing a sense of longevity. “We worked to shape a business model and proposition both for now and the future, we created the back-end system for ‘support heroes’ to manage subscriptions and a website to communicate the mission and vision,” she says. “Alongside this we are helping Joe build his digital capability.”  

“I love some of the features in the app, but for me the design has been so important in making this product feel fun and accessible,” says Nikki. “The rebrand work that Koto did for us really captured Joe’s energy perfectly, and Ustwo has done such an incredible job of bringing it all to life in the digital experience. We can’t wait to share it with the world.”  

Pantone’s 2021 Colour of the Year is… grey and yellow

After a relentlessly horrible 2020, Pantone has opted for a double colour of the year, selecting grey and yellow to convey “a message of strength and hopefulness”, as the press release states.

Pantone 17-5104 is described by the colour company as “solid and dependable”, akin to pebbles on the beach, or weathered natural elements that have stood the test of time, while Pantone 13-0647 is described as “sparkling with vivacity, a warming yellow shade imbued with solar power”.