Gold Pack 2016 (Finalist), Selati Sugar Product:
The student Goldpack initiative came with three given briefs that participants could choose from. The chosen brief for this project was option two called Brand power. In this brief the participant could identify any brand’s packaging in the South African market, that per the participant needs design enhancement to the product’s packaging.
For this project the Selati Sugar 2kg pack was chosen. The reasons why I choose this product is the following:
The Packaging of this brand is difficult to open by hand and often results in tearing the lid, resulting in spilling the sugar when pouring.
There is designated opening area where to cut, but then a knife or pair of scissors must be close at hand.
The packaging doesn’t communicate sugar or something sweet.
My parents bought the Selati sugar brand as far back as I can remember. I still recall my confusion when I saw the packaging of the brand. To me, sugar is supposed to communicate colour, sweetness and fun. Currently, the pack communicates to me more flour or maize that sugar itself.
Yes, I do understand that the Selati sugar pack has a lot of symbolism in the pack, but to me as a consumer, it doesn’t represent sugar. I don’t buy the product just because I like the packaging or the price, I just buy it because my parents bought it.
When Gold Pack came along, I decided to redesign the Sugar brand that I know and love but doesn’t like the packaging as a designer.
The Selati sugar brand is the number one South African sugar brand. Selati products are easily recognized by the Brand's distinctive red 'rising sun' motive, symbolising its origins in Mpumalanga (the place where the sun rises). It became a firm favourite with its consumers, whose loyalty to the unbleached environmentally friendly brown paper packaging and 'cut-and-pour' spout for the sugar packets has increased exponentially over the years.
The reasons why their packaging looks like it does today are:
Easy pour spouts on big packs.
Strong, impact-resistant (2 layers on 2,5 kg) Kraft brown paper.
Unbleached, recyclable, environmentally friendly Kraft brown paper.
I understand their reasons for the look and feel for the packaging but from a Graphic Designer’s point of view will:
Make the packaging stronger
Not ignore the brand identifiers
Make the pack more user-friendly when opening and closing
Resembles more the characteristics of sugar.
Thus, I am going to keep the iconic brown paper with its so-called Behave Paper but instead:
I am going to make that second layer thicker. So, that the pack is stronger and protect the product inside against possible dropping.
I am going to change the lid by not needing to cut it to open but rolls the top part up tightly and secure it with wire tape to finally close the packaging. This will ensure that the pack is sealed up firmly but is easy to open again to use the product.
Another characteristic that will take form is that the easily accessible lid will change the packaging self to a kind of re-usable container.
The look and feel of the pack itself are still going to have that natural feel of the brown paper but I am going to focus on bringing in the characteristic of sugar on the packaging.
I am going to focus on the following characteristics of sugar:
The sweetness and the playfulness of sugar. The sweetness of sugar is going to come throw by making iconic illustrations of the products that are made from sugar and is also very well-known as sugar products.
The playfulness of sugar will be emphasized by the type of style the illustrations is drawn. The illustrations are simply but cartoonish so that it resembles a child’s cartoon.
The overall look and feel of the paper, will keep that natural look and feel but is also going to resemble a kind of vintage look and feel representing Selati sugar’s longstanding history, on South African market shelves.
These illustrations will:
Then be made into a pattern.
The pattern design will be made up of the layout or patterns of the Polynesian Islands. The reason for this is the Sugarcane, used by Selati sugar came from the Polynesian Islands in the South Pacific.
Thus the pack resembles symbolically the changed phrase on the packaging “Original homegrown”.
The original brand colours were kept to prevent the pack from losing the Brand identifiers.
I feel that the design I created is fit and will add value to the packaging for the prestigious Selati Sugar company brand and resembles more the Sugar brand.
