HEMA is an international retailer established in 1926 with over 400 shops across the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxumberg and Germany. HEMA typically sells own brand products across a variety of categories including clothing, food, gardening tools, office supplies and homeware. Studio Kluif has been involved in the branding and packaging of these products since 2002 and this year was responsible for creating the packaging for the new bedding range ‘Dekbed’. Following the playful and loose illustrative style utilised across other Hema ranges, Studio Kluif has crafted a detailed ‘to-bed’ visual narrative confidently executed in a single colour.

While the illustrative approach is not massively unique it still delivers a playful and child like character that works well for a product associated with the world dreams and imagination. The images confidently draw together themes such as family, home and the bedroom while the absence of people opens it up to include the buyer.

It might have been nice to have had a bit of differentiation between each product variation but the own-brand nature of the range perhaps makes this a rather more affordable design solution which also makes really good use of a single colour print treatment without appearing cheap. The heavy content of the reverse has been given plenty space around its border and while the white ties it well to the illustrations, the rigid geometric execution and layout introduces an appropriate formality and contrast.

The material colours have a far more ‘grown-up’ and contemporary sensibility with deeper shades of primary colours and a more utilitarian warm and gun-mental grey that alongside a simple canvas bag hints at the products practical and basic functionality.