Rebranding Jacobs Crackers
For my branding and packaging brief:
I decided to choose Jacob's cream crackers. I like the product, however, I have always found the packaging to be plain and to be predictable, featuring a product shot on the packaging. This is a good and bad aspect of the old packaging as it allows the consumer to see the product they are going to buy. However this is a strong stereotype of food packaging. I wanted to subvert these conventions in such a way that it makes the brand fun but also upmarket. The companies target market are between 25 - 45 year olds. They are used as a canopy or entré. They are not a weekly shopping list item. I wanted to take this insight as a starting point. I wanted to make a packaging design that was eye catching but also practical. How do I get it on someones shopping list? The product is typically bought for parties , evening dinner parties, this information was found through research that I conducted - asked multiple individuals (varying age ranges) the same question "what would you buy this product for?" the overall outcome was "we would buy it as a snack or for a party". The logo and packaging needed to be interesting and "original" as the brand. I also found the original packaging did not actually protect the product. So my aim was to produce a package design that would look good and protect the cracker at the same time.
I initially researched some products within the same market as Jacobs that I liked and thought had an "original" aspect to them. To come up with some ideas and a starting point.
Existing packaging (2017 - photographed by me)
Initial Ideas in response to research into previous packaging and jacob's design:
initially i experimented with some first thought of ides in response to the original logo. My main idea was to make the 'j' stand out in some way however i went on to explore 'o'. I was inspired by the post on Logo Design Love website:
I was inspired by the letters and numbers post. I thought and questioned how could I apply this to my project? This was then the 'light bulb' moment as it were. I took a second look at the old logo and realised that the letter 'o' is a circle. But this letter could in fact be morphed into another shape or design. As you can see from my explorations, I experimented with the shape of the product and the letter. This in turn lead to the further exploration of the idea.
Sketched Ideas:
I explored my idea of using the cracker as the letter 'o' replacement, however I thought this would overcomplicate the design. I wanted to create a simpler and cleaner design. Yes this idea was 'original' however I believe it needed to be more complicated for people to decode it as a cream cracker. Also through further illustrator explorations I found that different fonts provided characteristics that would lend themselves to be morphed and reshaped. I also decided to keep the 'simply baked' and 'since 1885'.
The experimentaion on the right did not work at all. I experimented with a simpler form of the cracker but through peer assessment i found people thought the iconography was a dice. I tried to change the shape of the box to hold all the text together. making it rounder, rectangular but found the overall look of the design looked better in a rectangle with pointed vertices rather than convected.
By going back and reworking the design, it needed to be simpler to reflect the tag line - 'simply baked'. This is when I decided on the off centre square that represented the Jacobs product. By making the shape off centre it added a 'fun' characteristic to the text as it is serious enough that it does the job but has just that little extra something. I stuck to two colours for the logo; black with an accent as this combination works well and creates a strong brand logo. Due to the theory relating back to propaganda and the colour palate - red, white and black. (two colours and an accent) = the strongest possible outcome. The colours are clear and crisp it is pleasing for the consumer to decode because more than three colours can cause colour clashes and confusion (colour theory)
I made 'Jacobs' weighted to make it more prominent amongst the other text and for it to be the focal point. I then used a hierarchy for text placement. The tag line is the same distance as the companies name to make it more aesthetically pleasing. 'Since 1885' is the same distance as two character spaces of 'Jacobs' as well. So the companies name dictates the size of the rest of the design. The tag line and established date was in a different font as, as well as colour theory typographic theory comes into play. By using two different texts the design is broken down and does not blur into one. It creates a distinct difference. The font of Jacobs is also balance in terms of shapes. There a two solid lines making up the end letters, two broken letters either side and the 'c' provides negative space as well as the tilted square. Thus creating a balance within the logo.
Further research into packaging designs:
For the packaging I wanted to make it unique and as 'original' as I possibly could. I liked the idea of a geometric style concertina box that could be crushed down into a flatpack. I also liked the idea of using clear plastic inserts to allow the consumer to see the product.
After researching the various packaging concepts I completed sketched ideas and responses to my research. The packaging designs above directly informed my outcomes: I didn't want to stop here, as the design did not 'pop' for me. I wanted the box to have inverted and protruding edges. To create product tactility , just like the product itself. I looked into origami structures and architecture an found a lamp that had a really interesting surface structure. I broke down the product shape that was effectively a square and so I got two triangles. The triangles provided convected edges as shown in the rough sketch and vector construction.
At this point I thought the box was looking too tube like, like a Pringle's tube. I went back to the problem of people struggling to the product out of the clear plastic packaging and out of the rectangular box. I thought of the solution, how can I make it easier for the consumer to access the product. I looked at Pringles and thought about that actually the product does not take up all of the space in the tube. There is space for you to get your fingers into the tube to get a solid Pringle out.
How could I apply this knowledge to the branding of Jacobs?
- Make the box a pentagon shape. The product is square. By using a pentagonal tube I would be able to place the product inside the packaging with three spaces to get your fingers in. Your three main fingers used to grab and pick things up are you - thumb, index finger and your middle finger. These three primal fingers provide a claw-ish grip. By applying this theory it would provide easier access to the product for the consumer.
To gain further inspiration for the label design i research Jacob's original packaging in my local super-market.
After looking at the packaging i made a decision to include text from them as it is clear that it features across brand. To make the product stay on brand but revamped, i included the text.
Once finalising the packaging design I looked into other ranges within the brand and then applied appropriate colours to the products. The two designs below feature the colours from the choice grain and pepper corn packaging from previous designs within the brand.
Other product packaging ideas:
(to see final brand guidelines: see blog post - Brand guidelines)
