Packaging

Mama Sopa: Bubbles for Charity

The Dutch Simavi Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene in the poorest regions of developing countries, launched its own line of body soaps to help fund their programs. There’s no need to appeal to public’s sense of duty to get people to buy Mama Sopa soaps and bath gels, however. The playful yet sophisticated packaging of Mama Sopa rises to the level of any high-end branded product on retail shelves. Consumers will want to buy the product simply because they like it, not just because they see this as a way to make a charitable donation. Ina Meijer and Marjolijn Stappers of Con-fetti design agency created the playful hand-drawn identity of a woman with curly tall hair and big eyes. A muted color palette of apricot, taupe and seafoam blue gives the packaging a spa-like style that projects a clean, warm and relaxed look. Mama Sopa undoubtedly makes buyers feel good – doubly so knowing that they are helping to give poor regions sustainable access to safe drinking water, a problem that afflicts more than a billion people today.

Typography

Habibis: Accent on the Arabic

Mexican food is not considered exotic to locals in Mexico, which is why Habibis, an Arabic-Mexican taqueria in San Pedro Garza Garcia, emphasized the Arabic side in its brand identity. A municipality that is part of the Monterrey metro area, San Pedro Garza Garcia has a large third-generation Arab population that has infused intriguing flavors into the local cuisine. In transitioning from a taco stand to an alluring taco cafe, Habibis looked to Monterrey-based creative agency, Anagrama, to build a brand that conveyed the fine fusion quality of its food, while preserving its street-friendly and casual ambiance.

Read More »

Advertising

Nepia Tissue Animals

When the product is as commonplace as facial tissue, there’s no need for advertising to explain its benefits and uses. Civilized people know. So, Japanese ad agency, Dentsu, found a more compelling way to promote the Nepia paper brand by making origami animals out of Nepia tissue. The video performance feels like a magic act, with sheets of tissue transformed before your eyes into elephants, snakes and frogs and back into tissue. The white tissue and austere background help to suggest the clean, soft and feathery lightness of the product. This stop-motion animation was directed by Fuyu Arai with creative direction by Hitoshi Sato.

Read More »

Advertising

Mercedes-Benz’s Poultry in Motion

Luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz demonstrated how its amazing Magic Body Control suspension system offers passengers a smooth ride through the use of placid chickens funky dancing to Diana Ross’s “Upside Down” disco tune. For those of you who have never met a chicken that wasn’t already baked, grilled or fried, you should know that live chickens have the natural ability to keep their heads perfectly still even when their bodies are moving. For German ad agency Jung von Matt/Neckar Stuttgart, this chicken analogy seemed like a much more memorable and fun way to explain how Mercedes’s suspension system offers awesome motion stability. Daniel Warwick directed the dance number. No CGI was used in the making of this video; the chickens did it all with a few helpful hands.

Design Classic

Kilroy Was Here, There and Everywhere

Sometime during World War II, graffiti of a man with a long nose peering over a wall and the message “Kilroy was here” began popping up in the most unlikely and often dangerous places. It was boldly hand drawn on rocks and trees on the battlefields of Europe and the South Pacific, painted on the side of warplanes, on U.S. troopships, Army jeeps and bombed out buildings. The little Kilroy man became the logo of American GIs, and a way to taunt the enemy that there was no safe place to hide. The more remote and inaccessible the location, the more likely a GI would paint the graffiti to announce they had been there first.

Read More »