EQUATOR SCOOPS FIVE WINS AT GDUSA PACKAGE DESIGN AWARDS

This year, there were 2,750 entries to the Graphic Design USA (GDUSA) Package Design Awards. Only the top ten percent are selected as winners and presented with a Certificate of Excellence, so it goes without saying we’re thrilled to have made the cut!

The Awards, now in their 59th year, are a celebration of the power of effective package design and related disciplines to ‘advance the brand, tell the story, make the sale’. They are open to entries across 20 categories, including food & beverage, animals & pets, and special features like luxury packaging.

Equator picked up awards for four of our projects, including our work on Molson Coors ‘High Life’, ASR Group’s Domino sugar range, ALDI US’s Bravissimo Single Origin Coffees, and US Foods’ Kombucha drinks range.

Working with the Miller Coors team on the design of their ‘High Life’ brand was a challenging but incredibly rewarding project. Positioning the product as the ‘champagne of beers’, the team used colours and typefaces that created nostalgia. The inclusion of an old school campaign glass drove home the brand proposition of Miller High Life as the ultimate celebratory beer. Cheers, guys!

For US Foods, we created a design strategy for the retailer’s individually portioned, grab & go Kombucha drinks. A focus on flavours and benefits created strong visual appeal, and the new design was praised for the on-shelf impact of its energetic, bright aesthetic. This was a truly innovative brief that allowed the team to flex their creative and strategic muscles.

For ASR Group’s Domino sugar range, Equator created a design that stayed true to the brand’s distinct, longstanding colour palette, bringing to life product provenance, and ensuring consistency of the brand’s message. Congratulations to the team for delivering US Foods’ objectives of communicating heritage while appealing to a millennial market.

Equator was also honoured, along with client partner ALDI US, for the design of their Barissimo Single Origin Coffees, which involved creating a unique family of designs to differentiate them from the core range. Beautiful scenic and animal illustrations were created to evoke each product’s distinctive qualities and conveying a premium feel. Well done to the team and to ALDI US for delivering a perfectly executed, strategically minded design.

We’re very lucky to work with client partners that trust us with their creative vision and work collaboratively with us to bring it to life! Being challenged to push ourselves as a team, to explore the unexpected and deliver something truly impactful, is what great design is all about.

And, as GDUSA Editor Gordon Kaye commented, “Package design is more critical than ever… In this era in which audiences are fragmented, communication is cluttered, and brand loyalty is challenged, package design is uniquely positioned to advance the brand promise, inform, and persuade, and to forge an emotional connection at the moment of truth.”

Hear! Hear! And congratulations to everyone involved in our winning projects.