An American self portrait

Artist Chris Jordan has turned mind bending statistics of American consumer culture into some stunning photographic images in his Running the Numbers series. The Seurat copy above is made up of 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds. Detail below.

Milky milky

Arla have recently launched these rebranded packs that I designed for Lactofree at Path last year. I reworked the identity and packs to extend Lactofree from a single milk product into a range of yoghurts and cheeses. The product is real milk with the lactose removed (rather than a milk alternative) and the identity, packaging and back of pack information were all designed to reinforce this.

Beer

Great flickr set of old US beer cans here.

Flour power

This made me smile as I was firing up the bread maker last night - new identity and packaging (by jkr) that captures the heritage and character of Hovis while still feeling fresh and fun.

Gone are the generic sheaves of wheat, the tired looking logotype and the lumpish product shot, replaced instead by a striking loaf-shaped brand icon and thoughtfully considered typography and colour. Illustrations of the baker's boy (evocative of those cheesy but memorable Ridley Scott directed TV ads) and bread with the Hovis loaf tin mark, help evoke the warmth and authenticity of a brand with a rich visual history.

But the nicest touch is the thought given to the back of pack information, the design of which is often an afterthought at best. This is a great example of good design and copywriting reinforcing the personality of a brand long after it's helped shift the product from the shelf.

Wrington Greens, an organic market garden in Somerset briefed me a while back to create the identity and packaging for their new 'Wrington Press' hand pressed drinks range. I've just received these test prints in time for the launch this weekend at Bristol Organic Festival.

The aim was to express their handcrafted, traditional approach by screen printing a two-colour design onto kraft paper. Printing opaque inks onto kraft labels proved tricky but in the end Anglia Labels solved it using their digital(!) Indigo press and achieved a great result.