Elmwood's snack packaging designs that target the 'health-inclined and experience-seeking'

So when Leeds and London-based design agency Elmwood was tasked with creating new branding and packing for Yushoi, the Japanese-inspired brand of ‘better for you’ oven baked pea snacks, it had to come at things from a number of fairly challenging angles.

Yushoi is aimed at consumers defined as “health-inclined and experience-seeking”, according to Elmwood, and the new designs had to reflect both these tricky-to-align criteria.

Elmwood’s work was based on the new brand positioning “multi-dimensional, high-intensity food that’s better for you”. The agency decided that the best way to approach this was to “find a way of visualising the texture and flavour of each product in the Yushoi Pea Snaps range in a way that would make the brand stand out and provide a powerful platform for new products.”

The packs use illustrations created in-house at Elmwood, which show a “ring of texture and flavour” against a black background. This gives consistent across the range when seen on busy supermarket shelves, though each variety has its own illustration based on “the sensation of that flavour”, but in a deliberately more abstract way. The flavours include Lightly Sea Salted, Sea Salt & Balsamic Vinegar, Sweet Chilli with Lemon, Sour Cream & Chive.

Elmwood says these images were developed by asking questions like “what does sour look like? What’s the shape of umami? What texture does spicy have?” The illustrations are used alongside subtle product photography by Angus McDonald.

The new pack designs launch this month.