BREYERS ICE CREAM

I scream, you scream for a package redesign. This is a great time for ice cream package design make-overs. It is summer and the economy has gone to hell, which means that consumers are turning to quick comforts: vodka, mac and cheese and ice cream.

Breyers' redesign reflects a modern aesthetic that sheds superfluous graphic elements and embellishments. For instance, the "Real Ice Cream" line has been dropped. The trend now is not to emphasize real versus fake as it had been in the 1970s and 1980s, but rather to draw attention to the natural or organic quality of food. (I predict the next movement will be "Locally Natural".)

The shot of the ice cream is the same in terms of shape, but there is now attention to the texture of the ice cream. It was a smart idea to let the product shot dominate about 60% of the label; it also provides balance against the logo and flavour name. Again underscoring the natural is the removal of the fake spearmint leaf in lieu of a real one in the proper shade of green. Much of the mature look of the new design is derived from this overall simplification. Instead of there being two shades of green, red, and the colour of the flavour bar there is now just white and green along with the flavour colour. It's clean and appealing.