The London-based design agency gives iconic American nut brand Squirrel Nuts a complete revamp bringing them into the modern market for a new generation of consumers.

Squirrel Nuts has a long-established legacy of being one of America’s firm favourites when it comes to Nut brands. However, in light of the effects of a pandemic and with an ever-growing global market, Squirrel Nuts founders John B. Sanfilippo & Son has relaunched the brand turning to international design agency Straight Forward to give Squirrel Nuts a long-awaited revamp fit for a contemporary audience.

Squirrel Brand packaging before and after

The London-based design agency were tasked with creating a new visual identity that celebrated the brand's long legacy as well as appealing to a new generation of food-conscious consumers. In addition, the revamp sets out to re-establish the brand as a key contender against other gifts like wine, flowers, chocolates.

The new positioning places the nut back into the centre of the story while borrowing from fashion for the structural principles from signature, collection, and high-end couture design details and pulling forward iconography from the brand’s rich past, giving the design an antique yet modern aesthetic. A key element of the rebranding is the reinvention of the squirrel character and introducing a name, ‘Zip’.

Squirrel Brand logo before and after

The illustrated character can be found ‘zipping’ around the packaging, never to be found in the same place every time.

“Although the reimagined brand is built upon the heritage of the illustration style, it was important to allow movement and to bring the curiosity of the brand to life through the squirrel roaming freely around the packaging.”

The redesign offers customers an updated, premium experience incorporating the brand’s origin story, the nuts and their ingredients, an explorer’s map to guide the consumer through the brand and an unboxing experience that reveals that no two boxes are the same. The brand is also looking to a sustainable future, swapping for a more substantial paperboard tube and activity including partnerships to protect habitats and wildlife.

For more information about Straight Forward packaging visit their website or follow them on Instagram.

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