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how i refreshed our 15 year hero product in 48 hours

Writer's picture: zoejirgenszoejirgens

Updated: Apr 30, 2024



how i tackled a packaging refresh in 48 hours, with a brand new nutritional label with barely any experience.


 

The challenge ahead

i knew a packaging refresh was coming up. we had been speaking about it for years. i yearned to go back to the packaging i loved and knew in high school. we had brainstormed ideas a few years ago but never loved it. i had a few weeks to consult with our beloved designer to see if we could give it some sparkle again.


i set a plan and let him know a date packaging would be due. to my surprise, there were unforseen circumstances and that deadline moved up to 48 hours. it was a monday and i was quite nervous. could he do it? could i whip something up that matched his level of expertise? this is where i began.


the 48 hour deadline

i immediately dropped everything i was doing and began to brainstorm. i had also been pushing to shrink the nutrition facts as well. they previously had taken up all of the prime real estate on the back. i read the fda's guide on nutritional labeling around 12 times and highlighted each element that was relevant to mberry. failure was not an option on this packaging. i gathered all of our brand assets and began to work.


assessing the scope

i began by making a list of times that needed to be updated and refreshed

  • "new" sticker

  • bring back the old sticker

  • copy on the front

  • deeper colors

  • the nutrition facts

  • instructions

  • imagery

  • hazards

  • storing information

  • business information

  • fonts

  • flyer on the inside of the packaging

    • font

    • images

    • copy

    • aligning

    • business information

    • colors

    • logos


i had 48 to complete this entire list, share it with the owner, triple check, and send it off for print.


my background in packaging and nutrition

at this point, all i read was the fda nutritional label guide. i had been working with our designer for something new but we never brought it to light. i had limited experience in cosmetic packaging, but that was a different rodeo.


leveraging available resources

i had done previous research on branding, colors, and our designer taught me about prototyping. luckily i had taught myself illustrator basics during my first 2 years. i had found a website called recipal that would create nutrition facts and made a connection to a fda specific designer for nutritional facts. however, i had to size everything custom to our packaging and find the proper legal loopholes to ensure our packaging was not only 100% truthful and transparent, but to also get it through customs with zero red flags.


if you are stopped by customs, it usually is not great. caught with bad design + false fda nutrition facts can cause you to cover everything with a giant sticker or worse, product being destroyed


i had used a combination of all to steer me in the right place when deciding on our packaging.


the heavy work begins

my first objective was the layout. our designer told me to iterate over and over just tweaking one thing in between each. eventually you land on something perfect. i did just that. the front of the packaging remained the same with minor changes, but the back was a complete restructure. i had to fit the following (while complying with fda guidelines): nutritional facts, ingredients, instructions, pairing suggestions, choking hazard, how to store, web address, barcode, product origin, copyright information, distribution information, and that sticker at the top.


nutritional facts

i used a combination of what the fda designer gave me + recipal + the fda guideline book. becasue packaging was under a certain size and it has no nutritional value, i was able to qualify us for the simplified version. however, when fitted, it did not leave much room for any value. i kept researching the different types of nutritional facts the fda offered. i settled on a stacked simplified version. that was only the beginning.


i entered our information into recipal and i was able to obtain a svg of the label, but i had to custom size the fonts, spacing, and lines. once again, i was like an ostrich with its head in the sand with the fda guideline book. i was able to size it correctly, include all the required information, and make it look good.


instructions

on previous packaging iterations, we always had icons to represent the directions. i knew this would not fit nor would they match our existing branding in the same way. they needed to be followed by text instructions to convey their meaning. i revisited our original packaging from 2008. it had text instead of imagery. this is cheating, but i threw some copy into chatgpt and began brainstorming. i landed on the most clear and concise yet value creating copy i could with the provided space.


food pairings

thanks to our beloved designer, he had designed our freeze dried Miracle Berries that came out only a handful of years before. my "intern" was able to find the original stock icons of fruit and i simply picked the ones that made the most sense to mberry. i changed the colors and outlines to fit the existing branding. thickness, curves, overlays.


the rest

the barcode, business information, and other essential text was easy. i copied the existing wording, pasted, changed the font and size, and updated it to a copyright of 2023. this was by far the easiest besides the spacing within a small space while following guidelines. the front was color updates and copy. this was inspired by our original packaging with some updated "buzz" words.


the flyer

for some context, when i worked at mberry in high school, i was able to help design what is known as the "flavor tripping" plane ticket. it had changed a bit from when i first helped, but it was amazing. i changed all of the colors, fonts, and copy to ensure the most value was being added to people who loved our product. there were some spelling mistakes that were simple fixes and spacing.


mistake: the ai file of the flyer had 2 artboards. the inside of the flyer was flipped upside down. of course i needed to see it right side up. i did not flip it back so when it went to print, it printed the wrong way. but in a way, people loved it more because it opened the way they read the ticket. while the ink may have bled a little bit, it ensured the smoothest experience when opening up the plane ticket.


sent to be put into production

within 72 hours, everything was triple checked by each level. i remember calling the fda help line the day after having a complete meltdown because i missed a single line in the nutritional facts. i was assured it would be fine but importing for us can be difficult. look at the name: Miracle Berries. surely raises a red flag on its own


the day came when it was sent to be imported. i was sweating and nervous all day. waiting for an email to come in. to my luck, they randomly selected us for a fda clearance check. more in depth than usual. i believe it was 2pm and i got the "fda and customs has cleared your shipment. it should be there tomorrow". i let out the biggest sigh of relief. i did it.


lessons learned:

  1. never be afraid to ask for help

  2. use all of your resources

  3. create enough room to make changes, even last minute

  4. get approval up the chain to avoid mistakes

  5. if you make a mistake, it is not the end of the world. many people wont notice...unless it is the fda. they always notice

  6. practice practice practice

  7. always learn the basics of software and design

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