A designer with great type skills is worth his/her weight in gold.
Need proof?

Check out this unfortunate type solution that we found on the grocery shelves:

Unless the porn industry has found some amazing way to bottle porn…I’d say that their brand managers better get back in the office and hire another designer.

We just finished the label designs for Virgil’s Gardener’s Green Handsoap.
It is the BOMB. Their new liquid handsoaps have the same pumice and loofah that their bar soap has…and it moisturizes with the healing powers of Aloe and Vitamin E. It’s addictive.

Plus, it looks pretty sweet on your kitchen sink. Wanna help us prove that our design rocks? Login now, buy a ton of soap and SAVE 20%! Wow. What a deal!

Have you been down the aisles of your grocery store lately? If you have, you’ve probably noticed the latest trend in packaging design. Everything on the shelves is getting brighter, lighter and whiter. What’s up with that?

The Cheer redesign (seen above) includes a dramatic redesign their packaging and logo. I know from my design experience with Procter & Gamble that this is a big, big deal.

Procter & Gamble are maestros of brand. Their design strategy has always been one of transition over dramatic change. As a designer for P&G brands, we would make small, evolutionary changes over years and years to insure that we didn’t alienate our customer. (You may not notice the subtle changes, but I guarantee that if you put a Cheer bottle from 1990 next to a Cheer bottle from 1998, they would look markedly different.)

This change is dramatic. It indicates more than a design leap, it shows a change in the customer, the store environment and in business strategy.

Check out Clorox’s “Green Works” cleaning solutions (above).
In this example, like Cheer, white means natural and fresh. It may not be 100% natural or organic (I haven’t read the small print yet), but it’s trying to say simple and natural via the brand.

We’ve even jumped on the bright white wagon. This design we did for Dirt Devil was a direct response to Dirt Devil’s request for a bright, white design.

So, why the shift? Is it here to stay? Well…because of the pure nature of package design on this level…I’d have to say it’s a trend that we’ll see a lot of in the future.

Package design is a costly business. Brands test the heck out of new designs (in focus groups) before they invest in the manufacturing costs that it takes to put them on the shelf. Seeing so many bottles going white on the shelves must mean that white is connecting with customers in a very meaningful way.

We used to stay away from white because it meant generic, or diet. White now says: simple, clean and safe.

True, part of this color trend is just plain cyclical (what was old is new again). But I also think there’s a bit of color psychology at play that is a response to today’s environment. Our customer is overwhelmed. There is just too much technology, not enough time, too many products and a depressed economy. I believe that customers (myself included) respond to the white packaging on a purely emotional level.

We search for clean, simple and safe in our lives…so we pick it up at the store.

Basically, It just feels good.

Wow, that’s a stunning color, eh?
This blue craft beer hails from a microbrewery in Abashiri City, Hokkaido (Japan) and uses water from melted ice flows. The local seaweed gives Ryuhyo Draft it’s signature blue hue.

From a brand perspective…we give them an “A” for innovation. The craft beer market is all about being new and different. We just wonder if it follows through in the taste department.
If you’ve tried it…let us know!