Packaging redesign for Native Soul Food for their frozen meals.
I had the privilege of working with Christine, founder of Native Soul, on redesigning her food packaging. Their aim is to share delicious meals and inspire people to love healthy food. Everything is vegan with incredible flavours, and she offers a range of frozen meals that are free from anything but real ingredients. She originally started with eight frozen meals which I did the redesign for as below.
Frozen meals
They originally started with simple text stickers on the front before the redesign and entrusted me to run with some design concepts. I decided on a sleeve to fit over the existing containers for a sleeker look and easier method of containing the information. I tried a few concepts that nodded to the fresh ingredients and subliminally informed the customer of what was inside. Christine chose the large veggie design and I went on to complete the range of designs through the lockdown of 2020.
Desserts
She then went on to develop a dessert range of three decadent desserts. I wanted to give these more of a premium feel and the brief was also to be reminiscent of fancy chocolate bars.
Kids Meals
And finally a kids range was developed which customers had been begging for and have been received very well.
I created a variety of concepts for the kids meals which was out of my comfort zone in terms of colours and images. I tend to stick to black and white and quite simple forms so this was a great opportunity to push myself.
I started off with a natural palette concept which was more in line with my aesthetic. These included modified illustrations from the original frozen food range. However they wanted something more fun and attention grabbing for the kids, which I agreed with.
From there I focused on what would be the most visually interesting for the little ones which drew me towards primary colours and shapes.
The images below show just the front sections of each sleeve and how they would work together. The concept on the left was designed to fit together like a puzzle to be more interactive for kids, while the other two included variations of the primary colours and shapes. Christine also requested that we have little characters on the front so I played around with simple little fruit and veggie characters.
In the end we went with a bright gradient background of primary colours which included an overlay of simple shapes as well as the characters and was an amalgamation of a few concepts.
Signage
And finally I designed a variety of graphics for freezers at her various retail outlets as well as the sign for her own store at the time. For these I simply pulled in all of the graphics from the original eight frozen meals and snuggled them up together to form a border.
If you haven’t heard of Native Soul before, or are in the Port Elizabeth area, be sure to check them out. They have a wonderful new shop with a sit down menu and incredible vegan rusks and treats as well!
