With 30 years experience in creating strategic, adaptive and sustainable packaging designs for both local and international markets across Europe, our main differentiator is our cultural empathy.
As well as ensuring we have a diverse mix of talent within the team from different parts of the world, we tap into our global business reach to learn from other teams in different regions. Because we’re able to identify and understand cultural differences, we are then able to find the common ground, ensuring our designs are easily understood in different markets to help amplify the consumer brand experience.
SGK is a leading global design agency that defines, creates, produces and transforms packaging and brand experiences to amplify brands, giving them the freedom to speak louder, scale faster and grow stronger. SGK Amsterdam is part of SGK, a Matthews International Company.
The building block design of the new BIO+ brand logo provides a degree of light-hearted energy and, in combination with the bright and lively colour palette, has helped boost the brand to become far more modern, cheerful and approachable. The significantly larger and distinctive shape of the brand logo brings confidence and ensures instant stand out and recognition on shelf across all categories – amplifying the brand name to simultaneously strengthen the proposition. Designing the brand logo as a stand-alone icon on pack provides the necessary flexibility to work across a multitude of categories; adapting the colour of the logo to aid range and variant navigation and avoiding the need for additional colour codes, and therefore inks, on pack. The clean white wooden background and uncomplicated product photography align with the straightforwardness of the brand and the naturalness of the products, helping to communicate honesty and purity as well as giving the brand logo space on pack for additional stand out. Having created the strategic design for a core of 26 sku’s ready for a roll out across over 350 sku's, we also designed a Print Ad and a selection of POS materials for use in store to help further amplify the impact of the new look and feel for BIO+.
Breaking free from category conventions, we helped Unilever’s Knorr to democratise and elevate the modest wrap - making the products more accessible and more relevant for broader occasion use. Celebrating the natural colours of the vegetables which dominate the design, the white surrounds of the illustrations are used to make them ‘pop’ and reinforce the immediacy of the differentiation. The use of the classic farmers market wooden cart as a flexible holding device across the range brings a degree of charm, honesty and authenticity to the products. Wrapping the design elements, including the variant name and brand logo, inside the transparent circle which showcases the product helps unify the design assets on pack and gives cohesive strength to the communication. Our design for Unilever's Knorr Veggie Wraps was awarded bronze in the 2021 Pentawards global packaging design competition.
Carton is a highly renewable material with a relatively low eco-cost; it can be recycled 7-8 times before it loses its integrity and therefore its value. Brands of course need a canvas in which to distinguish themselves and communicate with their consumers on pack, but the use of ink printed on carton and paper material significantly reduces its sustainable benefits. ‘White is the new green’ conceptual packaging design innovation imagines an ink free carton packaging format, using embossing to maintain brand communication and to amplify the brands sustainable credentials. During manufacturing, die cutting and embossing happen as part of the same process and so no additional step or change to the line set-up is required. In addition, this ‘cleaner’ packaging design and use of white itself becomes a strong communication cue in terms of supporting the product’s proposition, a cleaner pack for cleaner laundry — simplifying the design to help amplify the impact. By removing the need for ink, we can enhance the consumer packaging experience and help brands to navigate the circular economy maze. 'White is the new green' was awarded silver in the 2021 Pentawards global packaging design competition. *This conceptual design innovation exercise has been conducted by SGK in partnership with Packadore Collective under their own initiative and is not representative of a commissioned assignment by Omo brand owner Unilever.
Ever Bean challenges category norms by encouraging consumers to reappraise the modest bean - a fantastic source of protein, fibre and vitamin B for health conscious snackers. Using the crisp and flavour ingredients as a backdrop, the humble bean is projected forward with pride and in celebration - a nutritional snack without compromising on taste appeal. Each variant offers an exciting mix of flavours, taking inspiration from different food cultures around the world - all of which have iconic bean based dishes embedded in their DNA. Somewhat reminiscent of an artist's palette, the unique design layout is supported by bold, vibrant and lively packaging colours to further secure stand-out on shelf.
Nomad wines are easy to transport, open and use - a structure that serves as a cup, not just a can. Taking the staple aluminium soda can and re-designing the lid provides consumers with a more authentic product and user experience; the wider open surface allows the wine to breath as when served in a carafe. Both the brand name and packaging design are influenced by the intended user groups; millennials and Gen Z’s with a passion for the outdoors. The tag of the lid and compass pointers are colour matched to the wine variant to provide navigational cues. The graphic design of a line drawn map and matt finish provides a grown-up and gender neutral look and feel to attract the adventurer in us all.
Re-energising a much loved icon, we helped Unilever’s Unox Cup A Soup to restore their energetic and cheerful personality on pack to strengthen brand appeal. The mug maintains its hero position on pack to guarantee brand recognition and provide effective shelf blocking, but has been given a more modern look and feel using an illustrative style with white surround for additional impact. Providing differentiation through the use of energetic background colours to improve variant navigation is supported by the placement of the flavour names on top of pack to avoid being hidden on shelf displays. The ingredient designs on pack have been paired back for a cleaner look and feel, balancing the brands playful tone of voice with a degree of authority by using a combination of illustration and photography.
Color Me Up’s recycled structural packaging comes in a shade of natural skin tones, representative of broader consumer ethnicity and allowing for pairings of hair colour to compliment different skin colors. It’s a colorful world after all - a message which is reinforced on the top of the tube packaging, celebrating differences in terms of both skin tones as well as hair colour choice. Navigation is made simple with the cardboard ribbon colored hair pieces attached to the inner tube of the packaging, providing consumers with a large color reference in store and supported by a clear variant number system. The consistent use of the red lips on pack serves as both a visual reference to a face for added stand out on shelf, as well as a globally recognised symbol of strength, power and pride.
It was important to create a packaging design that mirrored the simplicity of the recipes and one that would support the naturalness of the products. Our design is clean and uncluttered to both support the product message and also achieve stand out on shelf. This was a huge step for Knorr but by giving the brand identity space on pack we were able to maintain strong recognition. Our choice of illustration style further supports the simple naturalness of the products — it’s wholesome yet vibrant, modest and beautiful. Taking inspiration from the chilled juice category, we used a shrink sleeve to amplify freshness cues — using the language of another category in both format and printing techniques to innovate and inspire change within a traditional one. The smart integration of the illustrations with the transparent windows brings a new level of authenticity to the products, used on both front and back of pack. The new range design is bold, iconic and beautiful — allowing the brand to surprise and delight consumers with new easy to use and convenient meal solutions.