Branding and Packaging: BritBag

Classic Bag is a UK-based cost-effective packaging solutions business that prints and manufactures carriers, boxes and bags for a variety of retailers, hotels and fashion brands including Browns, Vivienne Westwood and The Dorchester. Independent design agency Salad was recently commissioned by Classic Bag to develop an identity and a series of ‘innovative and exclusive’ new retail bag concepts under the new label BritBag. Utilising a simple combination of monogram, logo-type, colour and illustrated pattern work with a familiar Britishness, the solution delivers a light, playful and traditional theme with subtle and contemporary high-street fashion sensibilities.

“The British made bag, which is made in a completely new way, offers versatile size options, a reduction in paper and a construction method which allows for a lighter paper weight. Allowing for less waste and noteworthy cost savings. In keeping with the 2012 patriotic revival, the brand name ‘BritBag’ was conceived. We then set about creating an identity and series of bag designs which would showcase the product and position it in the mid to upper high street fashion brand arena.”

-Taken from the Salad website

Salad’s visual identity solution is a simple but well executed looping and concentric double B monogram bound by a single line. Its consistent weight and soft terminals tie it well to a tall and neatly spaced uppercase san serif logo-type. The solid fills of the illustrations deliver a weighty contrast to the identity and although perhaps thematically a little saturated their flat geometric construction appears simple but contemporary. A muted and cream colour palette and linear structure across the bags introduce a good sense of motion and a cohesiveness while the nipped rather than folded edges of the structural design deliver a more unusual and unique quality. The result is a nice combination of classic and contemporary graphic and structural design cues that mix traditional England, fashion and exclusivity.

Visit the BP&O Logo Gallery for a chronological guide to all the identities reviewed on BP&O.

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Richard Baird Richard is a British freelance designer and writer who specialises in visual identities and packaging. He’s written for Brand New, Design Week and The Dieline, featured in Computer Arts magazine and also runs the resource Design Survival. Follow:     |     Twitter     |     Facebook     |     Portfolio     |     Contact