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Your Favorite Delicious Snacks Get a Minimalist Transformation Product packages are often the design equivalent of having a hammer driven into your eyeballs. Buzzword-y text everywhere, disgusting color overload, and corny cartoon mascots. So why not strip it all away and let the thing's name speak for itself?

Design firm A2591 took popular tasty products and gave them a minimalist makeover. All the extraneous crap, scrubbed away. Each item gets two version—one with some of the orignal's elements left over. Beautiful typography. Simple, popping colors. Tasteful. Think Cornflakes, without a big goofy picture of cascading milk into a Grand Canyon-sized pit of cereal. We all know what Cornflakes are—we don't need the helpful illustration. Of course, companies want their products to be as wackily eye-grabbing as possible so that our hands and wallets will do the grabbing next, but it's nice to imagine a world in which store shelves are visually appealing, instead of it looking like an ad agency projectile vomited. whatshouldibuytoday said...

To be honest though, how a product packaging looks does make a difference in whether I notice it or not. Sometimes some product with a really boring label will go unnoticed when I go to the store, and I might've missed something good.

December 20, 2010 at 1:25 PM stm said...

i much prefer the minimalist packaging.

December 20, 2010 at 1:28 PM ToxicPuppy said...

The third image of the red bull actually looks the best - it's much less "busy."
 DrQmn1 said...

3rd pics of both items look much better than 1st ones.

December 20, 2010 at 1:44 PM NooG said...

i remember they tried doing this with tropicana and people got upset... so they changed it back...

December 20, 2010 at 1:52 PM 
but in marketing, appearance can be as important as the product itself.

December 20, 2010 at 3:30 PM Monster Madness said...

I never cared much about Nutella as a kid ^^

December 20, 2010 at 3:53 PM MrRager said...

Nutella is amazing :D i mix it with ice cream :)

December 20, 2010 at 4:13 PM erics said...

they're definitely going in the right direction with this. it of course only works if their products are widely known. you might also want to check out 'muji', a japanese packaging design company that has the minimalism aspect going on, which is working quite well for them.

December 20, 2010 at 4:37 PM Suciô Sanchez said...

I prefer simplicity in the contents.
it's quite hard to, for instance, buy plain clothes in America.

I once popped into Trader Joe's looking for beer and nuts. The beer was cinnamon flavor and the preanuts were mango flavored. WTF?

December 20, 2010 at 4:46 PM Mistified said...

Yes the minimalist packaging sure look pleasing to the eye, but really what are the chances the companies would use them? They want to use the most eye-catching packaging, not the most eye-pleasing

December 20, 2010 at 6:17 PM 
Always been a fan minimalism, and I'd love it if packaging took a step towards it. Not ever going to happen, though.

December 20, 2010 at 6:43 PM dmayne said...

really cool post lol

December 20, 2010 at 6:54 PM Major.Mack said...

these products are all gross

December 20, 2010 at 7:24 PM Donkote said...

i actually kind of like the new nutella one

December 20, 2010 at 8:03 PM Pawawanpi said...

To be honest I don't think a minimalist approach to these items would work. People associate them already with a certain look and feel. If anything I think the middle one would be best if they wanted to transition or at least a good medium.

December 20, 2010 at 10:41 PM