Packaging Design
Black Squid Design Institute can make your package appear bigger and last longer. Well, maybe that’s a long shot. But we can design an unforgettable experience.
Black Squid Design offers innovative packaging and label design that breathes life into a product (and keeps it alive long after the others have dropped off the shelf).
Laucke Flour
Laucke is rich in tradition with a strong history of supplying quality flour to professional and home bakers throughout Australia.
The brief was to refresh the tired Laucke brand, create a more contemporary brand and target a more niche market - the artisan baker.
Create a logo and a more uniform brand and revitalise all lines of professional and retail packaging to reflect the Laucke philosophy.
Ensure the packaging works across professional and retail with over 90 product lines.
We have photographed various artisan breads and positioned on the front of pack in various angles, views, crops or layout to create strong shelf presence and instant varietal differentiation for the habitual purchase.
Brauer
Brauer Baby and Child was the first range to be transitioned to new packaging and has experienced growth in excess of 10% since the refresh.
One comment from a national buyer for a leading customer of Brauer that “this is the best packaging they have seen in pharmacy to date!”
Client comment: the redevelopment of packaging across the entire Brauer portfolio was an epic task. It involved the transition from what consumers told us was out dated, sterile, pharmaceutical looking packaging into a new, fresh approach that had natural cues whilst maintaining efficacy cues to assure consumers that the product would indeed assist their ailments.
Black Squid Design created a strong unified brand, applied across all packaging including new product development. They created a brand that reflects the companies philosophy and appeals to the target market.
Lost Buoy - The Lost At Sea Range
The closest winery to the coastline in Australia. We designed a brand with simplicity, mystery, intrigue and an element of quirkiness.
5Nines
A small batch distillery located in the Adelaide hills of South Australia, specialising in hand crafted Gin and Single Malt Whisky. At 5nines (99.999) they’re in search of perfection and leaving nothing to chance, even engineering and crafting their own still.
The label design features Illustrations that are inspired by the marriage between the hand crafted copper equipment and eclectic images relating to each variety. This visual representation creates a unique personality that is reflective of each bottle of Gin and the distilling process.
Lost Buoy - The Preserver Range
The closest winery to the coastline in Australia. We designed a brand with simplicity, mystery, intrigue and an element of quirkiness.
Whistle Blower Tea Co
In a saturated market their brand had to stand out as a premium tea for the masses, strongly pronouncing their philosophy of accessibility, honesty and sustainable.
Taking inspiration from whistle blowers and revolutionaries, release of information, codes and redacted documents, we trialled various combinations of missing letters to achieve the most readable, with the brain naturally filling in the gaps in the logo.
The logo had to be clean, bold and open to reflect the brands intentions and philosophy.
The packaging also took a minimalist approach with the strong logo becoming a central feature paired with bold photography showing each individual ingredient in detail. The logo was printed in gloss black foil to contrast the detail of the images and the textured, uncoated and recycled stock.
Pikes Limited Release Beer
The client approached us to design a small batch, limited release beer label for festivals and cellar door. To design a label that was visually and texturally premium, it needed to standout in the Australian craft beer market, and strikingly different from the current Pikes labels.
Taking inspiration from the freshwater Pike and their two-toned scales, the limited release label was designed to give an overall refined contemporary feel, with a simple minimalist look to break the mould of the typical craft beer. Using colours associated with the beer varietal to create an elegant and sophisticated colour palette. The labels pattern mimics a textural raised fish scale feel while highlighting one gold scale to symbolise its rarity.
Opulent Moon
Our brief was to design an entry level label that will capture the attention of the Chinese market. During the initial brief the client reminisced on a story. "When I was younger, I had a dream. I was in the schoolyard in China. I was surrounded by lots of cold concrete, I was by myself and I felt very alone. When I awoke from my dream, there was a full moon creating a soft, warm light from its glow. I felt safe.”
Using the story as inspiration we designed the labels for Opulent Moon. A series of three wines that depict the various stages of the moon - full, half and crescent. We printed with glow-in-the-dark ink on the moon graphics, to reflect the clients story so everyone can feel safe from the moons glow.
MUSQ Natural Cosmetics
Musq is an Australian made, natural make up and skin care range. Musq uses real ingredients for real results with no hidden ingredients or hidden agenda.
Black Squid Design have created a sleek and upmarket brand for MUSQ Natural Cosmetics, using black and white and creating a strong unified look applied to all products.
Shut The Gate, Tumbarumba Chardonnay
The existing Shut the Gate brand and wine labels revolve around various indirect gate references. This Tumbarumba Chardonnay is sourced from the high altitude of the snowy mountains, we saw it fitting to continue this direction with a theme of ‘the gates of heaven’. We drew inspiration from illuminated religious manuscripts; rare, aged and highly decorated. A complex gold foil was used, overprinted with black and embossed to reflect this luxurious, aged and textured motif.
MUSQ Natural Cosmetics Candles
Shut The Gate
Shut the Gate Wines are a small Clare Valley wine producer specialising in individual vineyard wines.
Black Squid has created the Shut the Gate brand based on three stories; for hunger, for love, and for freedom. Detailed illustrations and stories bring the Shut the Gate brand depth and meaning, while representing the quirky and individual style of the winemakers.
Frankly Eco
We created a logo, brand look and packaging suite for skincare start up Frankly Eco that reflects their stance as a young, modern, ethical brand for Mothers and their babies.
We wanted to give the packaging an overall soft and gentle feel to suit the product, a natural, honest and ethical skincare range for mothers and babies. We created digital illustrations in the style of continuous line and cut paper. One layer indicating the category, the other adding calming colours and differentiating the individual products. We chose these styles to give a clean and modern feel, while maintaining personality and authenticity.
We paired this with a hand written logo and clean, rounded type to build on this approach.
Coconut Alley
This 100% non-dairy, vegan friendly coconut ice cream really packs a punch! It is a premium ice cream that is made with fresh coconut milk, which is different to its competitors.
The logo drew inspiration from the inside of a coconut, with the typograhy and graphics representing the twists and turns of an alleyway - a surprise around every corner.
Coconut Alley - Flavours that will surprise you!
Sunfresh Salads
Packaging for the FMCG products from the Sunfresh Salads Gourmet Selection. Fresh raw ingredients have been used and strategically placed on the label to create vibrant colours that reflect the fresh ingredients in the products.
Hemera Estate
Hemera's premium wine - a gold screenprinted logo, classic clean label and custom stelvin all wrapped up in a beautiful bottle.
Amenas Sea Minerals
Rich source of concentrated minerals and trace elements derived naturally from pristine Australian ocean waters.
Carman's
A redesign of the Carman’s Porridge range gives more appetite appeal featuring product photographs, while maintaining existing Carman’s branding. Hand written type and illustrations are used to portray the love that goes into creating the natural products.
Schild Estate
Each label across the range represents a member of the Schild family, or a long held family emblem, sharing special family stories with consumers.
Fantastic Wafter Thins
Small World Bakery
Small World Bakery is a local artisan bakery specialising in using high quality ingredients and ancient techniques in fermentation to produce ‘real food'.
The brief was to create a logo, brand identity and packaging. We achieved the new look by designing an unique font and used a range of illustrations on the bread wraps which represent the natural, rustic style of Small World Bakery.
Charles And Lee
Bold black and white packaging was created with a fun typographic approach for the front.
Pikes Oakbank Beer
The Pikes Oakbank beer range, featuring a stout, a lager and an ale, reflects one of the original Pikes beer labels - traditional and handcrafted.
Simply Fit
Logo and packaging for certified organic wholegrains.
Shut The Gate
Shut the Gate Wines are a small Clare Valley wine producer specialising in individual vineyard wines.
wildsalad B. Baby Broccoli
The wildsalad branding has been extended to wrap itself around their Baby Broccoli. Hinting that the character doesn’t want to give up it’s tasty find.
Carman’s 20th Anniversary Tin
A highly embossed special release tin for retail outlets to celebrate Carman’s 20th anniversary.
Bob, Shirl, Doris & Doug - Cauliflower packaging
Winner of the AADC gold chair. The gold chair is the most coveted in the Awards and only one entry will reach this pinnacle. The most outstanding complete piece, recognised for both originality and excellence.
Our brief was to design a package for prepacked vacuum cooled cauliflowers. Our client needed to change the habitual purchasing of fresh cut cauliflowers to a fresh wrapped option, and increase overall sales.
Our solution was to give the cauliflowers a personality with a traditional name that consumers would find familiar and comforting, thus personally connect to; perhaps taking people back to the days of Grandma's roast dinners and or memories of trying to get kids to eat their vegies. Using four different names also encourages the consumer to return each week and purchase a new cauliflower, as each ‘personality’ displays a different serving suggestion. With simple, fun packaging, we were able to keep production costs at a minimum, allowing the design concept to deliver maximum impact.
The Ageing Room
Blackford Estate
The bold black and white pattern is taken from the family's history in horse jumping.
The Splendid Egg
Zak Haircare packaging
Our brief from local hairdresser Zak, was to create new packaging and brand for his range of styling products. The objective was to create a sophisticated container, to look exclusive but also instil a sense of ‘value for money’, while maintaining a point of difference. Each tag contains all necessary information, so no additional labelling is required, minimising production costs.
Unique names differentiate products types coupled with corresponding fluorescent colours maintain a strong shelf presence.
Research into the use of a strong durable synthetic paper stock, able to withstand wear and tear, was integral to this design. Due to its durability and flexibility, ‘Yuppo’ also enabled Black Squid to emulate the curve of a clothing tag.
Bethany Generation 6
The Gen 6 is the first of Bethany's wines to carry the new name, which reflects the Schrapel family lineage across six generations. An abstraction of growth rings found in trees, the label also represents how the winery is connected to the earth.
Swanport Harvest - Staycrisp labels
Black Squid Design - Olive
Spreading the Christmas cheer with Olive!
House wine for the Dog & Duck Hotel
The Dog & Duck Hotel needed labels for their red and white house wines. A great conversation starter.
90 Mile Desert - Olive oil label
The limestone coast, also known as the '90 Mile Desert', is home to the Brown family olive grove. 90 Mile Desert label design is an elegant, but bold solution that reflects the 'terra rossa' or red desert soil of the region, giving the product a strong shelf presence.
Banrock Station Range
Black Squid Design was selected by Constellation Wines to undertake the redevelopment of the Banrock Station brand. This rebranding exercise involved updating the packaging and marketing material without alienating existing customers, along with raising its profile within the market place. Banrock Station’s strong environmental focus also needed to be at forefront of every aspect of the brand.
Along with updates to the Banrock logo trade mark, a sub-brand graphic of a tree growing out of a bottle was created as an expression of Banrock’s commitment to ‘caring for the environment’, and to represent a focus on change rather than preaching any environmentally credentials. Focus testing was done in 5 countries on this approach, with unanimous results across all markets.
Using the new brand elements, this approach was then extended to the packaging and marketing material, including bottle labels, casks, cartons and merchandise for the Core, Reserve and Mediterranean Ranges.
3 Sister's & A Brother
Bethany Lawrence and Edna
This label commemorates the dedication of Lawrence and Edna Schrapel to both their offspring and family business. After many years of toiling in the vineyards the stewardship of the property has been passed to their sons, the current winemakers of Bethany Wines.
Chain of Ponds - Novello
Novello, which translates to ‘New’, is a contemporary winemaking style that produces youthful vibrant fresh wines. The new moon was used to represent this.
Currawong - Olive oil label
Seeking out the little black berries the currawong searches.
Griffin Wines
This Adelaide Hills winery value their proud family traditions, from making great wine right down to their pet dogs. The label designs take Griffin Wines to a new level and puts a face behind the name by featuring family members in quirky settings, including Bear the dog, to reflect the hand made nature of the wines and the approachable, friendly feeling of the winery itself. However, an alternative had to be found to include deceased family pet ‘Gooter’ on their Rosé label. The solution is a die-cut silhouette of the late pooch, allowing the Rosé colour to show through.
