Passion. Gusto. Provenance. Tradition. Timeless family recipes passed down through generations. Vermillion were asked to create a new brand and packaging designs for a range of premium Italian chilled ready meals, evoking the spirit of Italy and the love of quality, home cooked, regional dishes.

Immersion into the category considering tiering, premiumisation, range, brand identity, packaging formats, naming, tone of voice, messaging hierarchy, colour, fonts, imagery and photography. A deep dive into Italian trends, cafe and deli culture, popular Italian chefs and cook books and our travels and experiences in Italy. Our aim: to intimately understand this market and critically, the customer to ensure empathy with their perspective for great Italian food.

Our designer was chosen with a rich catalogue of creating successful food brands and private labels. They began analysing the research into Italian brands, the current Italian ready meals market and the customer profile and demographic. Following a range of concepts exploring different creative avenues and naming, Sapore Di Casa was chosen – Italian for a “taste of home”. Brand logo, brand colours, typography and marketing messages were developed and a brand guideline was established.

The packaging design process kicked off by reviewing the research across packaging trends, formats and finishes, design and photography styles. A range of concepts were presented and one was developed further. Sketches for photography and styling were also part of the creative process with test images used for the initial concepts.

Photography was a completely collaborative process with designer, photographer, food and props stylist, account manager and client all working closely to ensure a productive and successful shoot. A full scamp of each shot was created, mood boards, props list, styling targets and a complete briefing document were produced.

Design rollout was a critical stage in this project to ensure all front faces were consistent across the range. With multiple cutter profiles covering different sizes and shapes, this bridge between designer and production ensured image proportions were correct, graphic elements were suitably sized and positioned and adjustments were made to the designs to deliver a harmonised brand.

Production at Vermillion is a very light touch process. All the critical decisions around colour and print were already agreed in the creative process and design rollout provides fit for purpose assets with no rebuilding of artwork required. Back of packs and side panels were created in parallel to the retouched photography and design rollout process and are married up in production. Following final approval of artworks, reprographics were generated automatically using Esko.

As custodians of the brand, Vermillion were in a perfect position to consider adaptation to many different marketing channels – printed, commercial, POS and digital. Typically this would have been done by different agencies, recreating the brand assets and often photography, costing the client more money and diluting the brand through weak interpretation.

Packaging photography was produced in such a way that each shot could be used for other purposes such as marketing where a bigger scene was required. Additional shots were also taken whilst the set up was in place and lighting had been agreed.

A fabulous brand created in less than 21 days. Market relevant. Emphatic of the target customer. Beautiful photography and styling done during an effective and time efficient shoot. Predictive proofing throughout. Print and colour accurate packaging. Significantly cost minimal (when compared with a traditional launch model). Managed through a transparent, stress free and disciplined process. This could only have been achieved by the model and best practice Vermillion embraces – all through one team and all in one building.