JKR

Just hitting the shelves, our design for Budweiser ‘66’. Lightly carbonated with a touch of sweetness for a smooth, easy taste, Budweiser ‘66’ offers consumers something new and different. The design objective was to deliver a great “badge in the hand” through a contemporary take on an iconic brand.

Budweiser is an amazing brand to work on – the master brand’s famous design has been tweaked but hardly changed in over a hundred years. So this was like being given the keys to a Cadillac and asked where we might want to take it for a spin. The challenge was to deliver something fresh without diluting the classic ingredients, to retain the authenticity which is central to Budweiser’s appeal.

‘Keeping it simple but credible was the main objective; not trying too hard to be cool while also feeling like a classic, confident American brand. The shape (derived from the brand’s iconic bowtie) creates an impactful and distinctive label.  The strong angle creates a dynamic arrow which points to the copy explaining the beer’s proposition.  The oversized logo and contemporized AB seal combined with the off centre graphic give it a laid back feel’. Sean Harvey, Design Director, jkr.

And here’s some examples of the latest advertising activity going on around the brand – great to see jkr’s hometown of Camden wallpapered…

Despite being Britain’s biggest sausage brand, there was a need to drive frequency of purchase and give consumers a better idea of what the brand stood for. Richmond chose to use its packaging to elevate the brand, leveraging it across all brand communications.

When it came to the design strategy, we decided to project Richmond as a heritage brand that consumers could confidently trust. To achieve this, we maintained the visual equity inherent in the green while elevating it to reflect the natural values of the brand. The Richmond word mark and logo bring to life the brand’s heritage, reaffirming Richmond sausages as ‘The Taste of Home’.

“I wanted to create an element in the design where you could almost see the farm, and to add a sense of home and hearth” says designer Bob Celiz. “The farmstead weather vane was a way to evoke these emotions and get an element of craft and tradition into the design. We did plenty of proposals of the weather vane, telling various stories, from which the homestead was selected.”

Bob adds “We crafted the wordmark, and made the window which is part of Richmond’s distinctive architecture more of a smile, to be softer, and more sympathetic to the overall feel of the design.”

Next week sees the launch of the Cheestrings Spaghetti, the latest innovation from the Cheestrings brand. The new product, which consists of cheese the shape and thickness of spaghetti, aims to capture kid’s imaginations by making lunch more fun. Cheestrings Spaghetti follows the successful launch of Cheestrings Shots last August.

When it came to the design, it was all about building on the current brand identity. “The Spaghetti pack represents a natural evolution of the core range and Shots design, where we used Mr Strings to communicate the nature of the product. We used his hair to bring to life the product and drive engagement and fun using the back of pack.” Adam Swan, Designer.

Here is how the packs unfold as a “bandolier” of individual mini packs for lunchboxes. As you can see, this gave us a great canvass for playful back of packs featuring “spaghetti challenges”:
And here is how the packs appear at retail:

“We are delighted that we have pushed the boundaries for both product innovation and structural format for Spaghetti. The new packs will ensure that we break category conventions and provide both a fun and engaging format for kids combined with a lunchbox friendly solution for mums. A true innovation that you would expect from Cheestrings”. Emily Pickard, Cheestrings Brand Manager.

For the full Cheestrings story click here…

As we turn the corner on our second decade, jkr celebrated with a birthday bash in Jersey. We have a small shindig every year, always branded to reflect the location of the bash.

As our designer Alex states, “this was a classic combination of 2 ideas – Jersey cows plus island rally (which is what we were up to) equals a cow dressed in British racing green”. The event organisers liked it so much that they’ve adopted it for all their future events in Jersey!

Here are some of the stats we shared to show how we have evolved over the last twenty years…

…Our client base has become more dynamic over the last 20 years

…And our office space has grown considerably

…From 0.9 desks per person to a more spacious 1.13 dpp!

…Which meant our first move with 4 people and 2 allen keys was very understated compared to our lastest move!

…Here are all the places we’ve visited on our annual weekends away

…And this is the number of jkr babies that have been born over the last 20 years!

If you want to join us for our 21st, please take a look here for current job openings: http://www.jkr.co.uk/contact-us/

This month sees the launch of the new Guinness glass, created by jkr. The new structure overcomes the generic association with the tulip glass, delivering a bespoke solution inspired by the Guinness iconography.

The new embossed glass plays on the equities of the harp which are echoed in its dynamic curves and tactile feel.