Buying snacks is never easy. All that packaging in the aisles can quickly become overwhelming. There are simply too many mascots, bright colors, and flashy packaging clamoring for your attention. When you consider that the “average person sees up to 5,000 ads” a day, you can imagine how exhausting it all becomes.
All of this could by cited as inspiration for Astrepo, a creative agency that released a photo series taking packaging down to a calmer place. Minimalist versions of Nutella, Nesquik, and Tabasco sauce are only a few of the featured pieces, which show the progression from recognizable logos to more streamlined conceptual pieces. The stark simplicity of each transformation a commentary on the folly of branding ideals.
But what do you think? Do you prefer the minimalist versions, or the tried-and-true classics?
H/T First We Feast
11 replies on “How this Design Firm Transforms Our Favorite Food Brands is Absolutely Breathtaking”
I kind of like the minimalist versions. Way more calming.
Except for Tabasco…that has always been, and will always be one of my favorite labels of all time.
Breathtaking? How? By taking away the brand recognition?
I dont know about “breathtaking”, but it is interesting. I think the tabasco turned out the best, pringles not very well.
This looks much more impressive because it is part of a sequence in which we see it go from some level of complexity to a very simplified version. It’s a makeover and that is what is impressive. However, if we were to see lots of products with such generic labels in the stores, we’d actually find them visually similar and boring. We’d gravitate toward something flashier and more complex and have less confidence in the simplier-looking brand. Designers know what they’re doing to catch people’s eyes. If these simplistic designs were in any way better for consumers in terms of catching their attention and increasing the chances that they’d buy the products, they’d already be in use.
Less is more.
As long as they’re going to silk-screen the jars (Tabasco, Nutella), I think we should also go back to washing and reusing them.
Calming is fine… but put these products on a supermarket shelf next to 100 other brands of competing products, and you may have a serious sales problem.
This would make shopping at a supermarket extremely boring. You do not get the same drooling sensation for various items when you have to look at such simple and similar styles of packaging lol
It was not that long ago when Tropicana tried to shift to a more minimalist branding. It was disasterous and resulting in 20% less sales. Plus cost of the re-branding, then an emergency rollback of branding. http://adage.com/article/news/tropicana-line-s-sales-plunge-20-post-rebranding/135735/
Is it me or is this akin to staring at shelves of government sanctioned products ..? Good exercise to reveal branding prowess, but I’d hate to live in a world of minimalism. Colour and motion (even if it’s ugly) is better than staid, rule based conformism … no?