Packaging: Dairylea

Dairlylea is a processed cheese triangle produced by American owned Kraft Foods with a history dating back to the 1960′s. Following the brand’s continued push towards a more health conscious positioning (and move away from the bad press of the past) it has launched a new recipe that contains only 100% natural ingredients. The redesign, created by London based brand and packaging development agency Holmes & Merchant, reflects this new proposition through the introduction of a new craft based aesthetic, simplified typography and an illustrative design that sets a more honest and healthy tone.

“This project was all about recapturing the hearts and minds of mums across the UK, and restoring pride in the Dairylea brand.” “The new recipe is made with all natural ingredients, so our design objective was to reflect this and reward loyal mums with a great new design, whilst also encouraging reappraisal for the doubters. The new design now strikes the right balance between ‘mum’s food choice’ and ‘kids’ food choice’.”

- Rebecca Fone, client services director at Holmes & Marchant (taken from The Drum)

“Dairylea is a heritage brand that has nurtured generations of kids; it had lost its ‘healthy’ credentials and its place in the nation’s fridges.” “We’ve got a fantastic new product coupled with Holmes & Marchant’s vibrant redesign to tell our compelling ‘all natural ingredients’ story. It’s a new era for the brand, and the design celebrates this.”

- Bruce Newman, Kraft’s marketing manager for cheese and grocery for UK and Ireland (taken from The Drum)

I tend not not to post such commercial supermarket products but I think this a really smart update that understands the sector and attempts to counter the negative perception of processed foods. Holmes & Merchant’s solution does incredibly well to push a far more wholesome message by utilising an uncoated and rough cut craft paper aesthetic, ditching the familiar landscape scene and wooden sign device (see Ambrosia Custard), and adopting a far tighter ‘amongst the grass’ perspective that works really well to capture a child’s eye view and the elemental, natural ingredients.

The bright yellow, blue and green colour palette has been retained but tempered and earthed, removing the airbrushed synthetics of the previous design, with a nice combination of home-print and paper textures. The red that ran through the early designs is now absent, leaving the pack looking far fresher. A really nicely rendered cow illustration, created from a simple set of elements, manages to deliver character with a clever blend of realism and subtle oversized detail that really separates itself from rival brand Laughing Cow, pushing the milk content of the product while developing a distinctive and proprietary product mascot.

The typography still reflects the creamy texture of the cheese through its smooth and sweeping terminals but now executed with far more restraint, introducing more space around the letterforms, removing the drop shadow/depth, reducing the highlights and delivering an interesting contrast to the geometric cuts of the illustration. The splash contained within the loop of the ‘y’ is a nice reflection of the one over the ‘i’ and really shows a eye for detail and balance. A combination of loose 70′s and hand cut type, in an attempt to unify the logo-type and illustrative work, seems like an odd and inconsistent pairing that does not achieve the appropriate agricultural sensibilities of the slab serif from the previous design.

The result is far more in-tune with the market and manages to fuse the natural cues expected from a parent and the more playful, imaginative qualities that draw children while appearing far more original.

Via The Drum

Previous design.

Early Dairlylea packaging created by Smith & Ritchie (now Amcor Flexibles S & R. Amcor). Image taken from Flickr - edinburghcityofprint