I was given the opportunity to redesign the packaging of the Spitz sunflower seed product in my graphic design course. I have consumed this product for practically my whole life. It's a staple snack for my family in the summer when we go to our cottage. Which is why I was extremely excited to not only resign their packaging but also make it biodegradable and better for our environment. The perimeters for this assignment were to either decrease the amount of packaging used, change the materials to be more environmentally friendly or have them be reusable, create an additional paper element and show all the information that was present on the original packaging.
The first step in redesigning is fully understanding our clients target audiences and main competitors. You want your product to stand out from their competition but still align with their brand and maintain their clientele. Through this research I was able to identify what makes Spitz special and why their clientele has always been so strong. Spitz was one of the first companies in North America to grow, roast, season and sell sunflower seeds. They have been around for over 25 years, starting as a small family business and growing into a large corporate one before they sold to FritoLays. They were named the #1 sunflower seed company in Canada and #3 in America. Which makes it extremely important to connect with the target audiences and maintain their brand in their new package design.
With all this knowledge I was able to start sketching the redesign. The sunflower seeds come in a variety of flavours, with each flavour being given its own colour for easy identification. It also had a small window for viewing the product, but it was difficult to see how much seed was left unless you opened the bag or felt it. I rectified that problem by adding a large viewing window to allow for better visualisation of the product. There were a lot of elements present in the original packaging, making it difficult to create something new and fun. Since I had to create an additional paper element, I decided to create a slip that goes on top of the package. This allowed for more breathing room and creativity. The main aspects of the brand identity, like the famous sunflower on the original packaging and the logo, were placed on this slip to increase recognition on shelves. This also allows the actual product packaging to have more room for the design. Which I decided would be a mix of imagery and colour. The same colours were used to continue the theme they had for flavour identification. I wanted to use sunflower seed imaging to make the bag appear like it has more product inside, thus making consumers feel like this product is the best option.