BrandOpus refreshes McCain's packaging portfolio

BrandOpus has refreshed the design of McCain Foods' whole GB and EU packaging portfolio, which now includes a new bespoke typeface and printed brand assets.

As the long-term brand agency partner of McCain Foods, BrandOpus had recently worked on the McCain global identity in a bid to make the McCain brand more iconic and build a more consistent visual identity system globally. The studio also led the redesign that was carried out back in 2013.

This latest project has seen the new brand assets introduced on pack across all products, from croquettes and chips to wedges and fries.

Some of the key SKUs—including Home Chips, French Fries, and Smiles—are iconic products. According to John Ramskill, BrandOpus's executive creative director, the challenge was to retain "memory structures" and ensure "findability".

McCain organises its portfolio via a Demand space model, which is a framework that helps businesses understand how consumers make decisions and how to tailor their products and marketing to meet those needs. It means that it can identify specific contexts or occasions related to this.

"Our design strategy is to bring to life those occasions via imagery on the pack; for example, on French Fries, we are cueing a QSR treat moment via the graphics and photographic representation of the product," says Ramskill.

McCain's type style seeks to capture the natural brightness and reflect the diversity of the product portfolio, especially the new bespoke font, McCain Wedgebrush. Ramskill says: "We wanted to create a typeface that felt handmade and authentic but also contemporary.

"We created the design intention and then worked with FontPeople to realise the font and distribute it to McCain and their global agencies."

This handmade and expressive typeface is supported by two others—Rooney, designed by Jan Fromm, and Brother—which communicate the finer details of each product.

Hand-printed assets and illustrations have been created using real potatoes to convey the natural and real ingredients used in McCain products.

In addition, the logo has evolved to a simpler, more iconic version, and the design system' flag' device that sits underneath it was optimised and integrated more holistically into the overall pack designs. The latter now serves as "a consistent area for communication of key information on pack," says Ramskill.

Since the colour palette and pack colours were already established, they were maintained for memory structures, and product photography stayed the same on most products.

According to Ramskill, the simplified, refreshed, and more iconic McCain identity enables more standout in the frozen fixture. He says: "The simplified execution means it's easier to print and replicate across different sizes and substrates.

"By utilising the new identity and custom typeface along with hand-printed assets that are already being used across communications, we aim to create a global unified look and feel that is executed consistently."

McCain's new packaging approach will be replicated across multiple markets, including GB, Central Europe, and soon – India and Australia.