By: Bill McCool
When you’re charged with designing the packaging for a biscuit whose origins date back to the late 17th century, you’ve got to dig pretty deep. That’s exactly what Design Bridge did for Fortnum & Mason when they redesigned the packaging for their tried and true confections as well as a brand new set of flavors.
Design Bridge knew they had to pay a visit to where the Florentines are actually made. Not only did they meet a lot of the people that help bring this luxurious biscuit to the market, they also got to find out what really makes the product unique to Fortnum & Mason.
“We looked into the history of the Florentine,” Design Bridge Creative Director Chloe Templeman says. “With its innovative flavor pairings and colorful chocolate, the new range definitely puts a contemporary twist on a classic biscuit, and the shapes and colors of the new ingredients, combined with the satisfying clash of the crunchy nutty base and the smooth chocolate of the biscuit, formed the basis of our creative inspiration.”
But they didn’t stop there. “We also looked at Italian fashion and textile design,” Chloe says, “and the bold, eye-catching geometric fabrics and shapes we uncovered further inspired our final design route. For us, it’s the perfect combination of patterns, shapes, swirls, and playful clashing colors. It’s reminiscent of Italian fashion, but it also represents the biscuits themselves – what they look like, but also what it’s like to eat them.”
Sadly, you can’t eat the box, but the design brings a great deal of texture to the whole enterprise. The end result is a box that not only captures the biscuit’s wide range of flavors, but it also takes inspiration from the ingredients themselves.
“We took the colors and shapes associated with each of the ingredients and really dialed them up,” Chloe says. “Then it was a case of looking at the range as a whole to make sure that they worked together on the shelf as well as on the individual packs.”
It makes for an impressive viewing. Geometric patterns and shapes paired with bold colors jump out at the consumer to create a gloriously decadent box of biscuits.
“When you see them on the shelf as a set,” Chloe says, “I think you can really see that we’ve achieved and exactly what we set out to do from the beginning - which I am proud of. However, I think that when you have just one pack in your hand they still feel just as special.”
By reinvigorating Fortnum & Mason’s entire line of Florentines, Design Bridge has given each flavor not only a distinctive look but its very own character.
Bill McCool
Bill McCool is a freelance writer based out of Los Angeles. Though new to the world of design, he has always been a storyteller by trade and he seeks to inspire and cultivate a sense of awe with the work and artists he profiles. When he’s not winning over his daughters with the art of the Dad joke, he is usually working on a pilot, watching the Phillies, or cooking an elaborate meal for his wife.
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