WINNER
Callaly
by Design Bridge London, for Callaly
UK-based direct-to-consumer period product start-up Callaly looked to shake up the femcare category’s generic look; and overturn the fact that such products were often shamefully hidden away.
Design Bridge’s all-female team was tasked with creating an identity that helped offer a personalised experience tailored to every customer. It designed Callaly’s sustainable, flexible postable packaging (aligned with its Certified B Corporation credentials using recyclable materials); making it resealable in a nature-inspired design where each “petal” revealed as the box opens contains brand and product information and encouragement to users to recycle the packs.
Bold colours are used to eschew femcare’s usual feminine pinks or plain white “non-design”; and biodegradable wrappers decorated using a variable printing technique mean every single product is unique. Design Bridge also created a bespoke typeface used alongside a “striking” new photography style that contributes to the brand’s “conversational and approachable” tone of voice. The consultancy also consulted on the website's look and feel, art-directed photoshoots for social media and created a suite of animated icons for online.
The judges said: “Thoughtful, well-considered fresh idea with innovative use of techniques and materials which has completely delivered on the brief.”
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Heights Packaging
by Pentagram, for Heights
Pentagram created the identity for direct-to-consumer brain health and wellness startup Heights. The bottle design for its first product, a smart supplement designed to “fuel” the brain, needed to be distinctive enough to launch the brand while also being under 25mm thick to fit through people’s letterboxes.
Pentagram researched plastic, glass and blister packs to choose a format with the lowest possible carbon footprint; and its designs aimed to move away from the clinical design approach of many supplement brands. The soft bottle takes an asymmetric bubble-like transparent form, highlighting the transparent capsules inside which reveal their natural ingredients. The unusually flat bottle design uses a narrow neck tapering into the main body, achieved using both software simulation and extensive development and prototyping with the moulding manufacturers. The shipping box was designed from sustainable, biodegradable moulded sugar cane pulp formatted as a hinged tray to transport the bottle safely while only adding 0.75mm to the package’s thickness.
PACKAGING
3D
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Petit Bateau Packaging
by Mutation, for Petit Bateau
Branding and design agency Mutation was briefed by baby clothes brand Petit Bateau to develop new packaging that helped make the brand more appealing and recognisable on-shelf, encourage impulse purchases, protect products better and ultimately increase sales.
The brand’s origin story includes the transformative moment when, in 1918, Petit Bateau founder Pierre Valton’s son Etienne was inspired by a nursery rhyme to cut the legs off long pants of the time, thus inventing cotton panties for children. Mutation was inspired by the idea of the “cutout” as its packaging signature; using a simple dieline to showcase Petit Bateau's clothes and enable easy navigation of the collections. A more robust pack structure was introduced with a closing device, enabling the brand to communicate its story on the back of the pack and offer clearer information around ages and sizing. Mutation also recommended a new font for packaging, which has since been adopted across all of the brand’s communications.
Machel Montano 60% Dark Chocolate Bar
by Praktis Design, for Montano's Chocolate Co
Praktis Design Ltd worked across the packaging and identity designs for the Montanos Chocolate Company, taking inspiration from the duality of the brand's main ambassador Machel Montano’s public and private personas. Montano, “a household name across the Caribbean diaspora as a vibrant, charismatic musician,” according to Praktis, also devotes much of his private life to silent meditation in Himalayan monasteries. This led the agency to look at images such as the mandalas and their concentric circles, and the lotus flower; which were then linked with design cues relating to Trinidad, such as carnival costumes, steel pan rings and the shapes seen in cocoa pods’ cross-sections. These designs are used across the identity in expressive illustrations and in the concentric rings that pull together the illustrations on the exterior of the package.
