Dutch Packaging Design

The characteristic brown beer bottle will turn just as green as the bottles that Heineken sells worldwide. The Brown bottle is a relic of Dutch appointments made decades ago to redeem deposit-bottles. Brown glass is recycled by most Dutch brewers, so it doesn’t matter which Brewer is taking in a bottle. Green glass is much less established. First, the green bottle was intended as an export bottle, but over the years it has become the color of the Heineken brand. The exchange operation began twenty years ago. In 1992 the Red cap disappeared, six years afterwards the yellow crates turned green and since 2000 all Lightboxes are green as well.

After a successful redesign of Look-O-Look’s Family Bags, Flowpacks and Toppermix, the redesign and packaging for the international Mix Bags of Look-O-Look is done by Stepfive Communication & Design too. The Dutch candy producer with “The most delicious candies in one bag” wanted a fun and diverting bag with small flowpacks in it, appealing to all family members, young and old. These Mix Bags differ from the other Look-O-Look bags by having small and handy portion packs in each mix bag. Each different bag has its own colour coding, visuals of aforementioned small portion packs/flowpacks (drawn in realistic style) and a large window for optimal visibility of the delicious candies.

Stepfive created new packaging design for Maître Paul’s MiniMoments range, a range of small pastries that are the perfect treat for ‘those special little moments’. The MiniMoments are nice to give and fun to get! The goal was to create a visually appealing and recognizable range.

In addition to this restyling, a new organic cream yoghurt (with fruits) packaging design was created for Dutch company Weerribben Zuivel. Fresh and natural visuals on the packaging are showing us the origin of this organic cream yoghurt: National Park ‘De Weerribben’ in The Netherlands. These visuals and the coloured shopping list on top derives from the complete restyling by Stepfive of all the other Weerribben products and herewith makes it into a coherent and appetizing product range. Also to distinguish the cream yoghurts from the other yoghurts, we’ve added visuals of the fruits used in the yoghurt.

Ever thought about just how persuasive packaging can be? Supermarkets use carefully designed packaging to influence customers’ perceptions of their products. But does it work? It was tested with chocolate chip cookies on two groups of people, one group tasted and rated the cookies without seeing any of the packaging, while the other group did the same thing while the packets were shown beforehand. Read about the results here.
Packaging is one way of making a product get your attention. But there’s more. Every element of the in-store environment is carefully deliberated over; from the general layout to the position of products on the shelf and even the smell and sound.
Read more about psychological tactic in stores here.

For the Dutch brand Kips, Stepfive created two reclosable ‘out of home’ freshpacks for cheeses and meats including printable stickers. Each freshpack contains ten slices and is designed with an apparent color setting (yellow for cheeses and red for meats). The packs have a basic, clean design with clear Kips branding for optimum product visibility that convey top quality products. Kips is a brand of Zwanenberg Food Group.

Piece of cake for the urban grillmeisters behind their BBQ’s these days with the new and delicious Snack Skewers (Snack Spiesjes) from Dutch company Zwanenberg Food Group. Stepfive created the labels for this new product range. Each different taste variety has its own colour setting and the labels are placed at the top in order to have a good spot on the tasteful skewers.

Many food labels are confusing (and some downright misleading) especially with regard to animal welfare claims. To help navigate the confusion, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) has released A Consumer’s Guide to Food Labels and Animal Welfare.

This new guide aims to help consumers who purchase meat, dairy and eggs interpret the meaning of label claims and locate products from animals who were humanely raised and handled.
More on ‘A Consumer’s Guide to Food Labels and Animal Welfare’ here.

A compilation of yearly design awards, this book features the best in communication and packaging design from around the world. The iF communication design awards have been conferred since 2004 by a panel of design experts from across the world. Showcased in this volume are the most outstanding examples of communication and packaging design. This yearbook presents trendsetting achievement in advertising, media, campaigns, packaging, and websites.

Read more here, or buy here.

On January 1st, 2013, taxes on packaging in The Netherlands will possibly be abolished. Owing to an agreement between Dutch State Secretary Joop Atsma (Infrastructure and Environment) and the business world, manufacturers, importers and sellers of packaged products will be responsible for the costs of collection and recycling of plastic packaging over the next ten years.

Read the complete article (in Dutch).