VANCOUVER–Silver Hills Bakery’s new bread packaging designs premiered on the shelves of Vancouver and Alberta grocery stores today. Karacters design group, a division of DDB Canada, is the firm behind the new look, which replaces the design put together by Karacters 10 years ago.

“We liked the work Karacters had done for us in the past and their original design was very successful,” said Brad Brousson, CEO of Silver Hills Bakery. “I am excited about the new look. Karacters pushed us out of our comfort zone and achieved a product that stands out on the shelves.”

Karacters received the contract in the spring of last year. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) had set new requirements for bread packaging and Silver Hills had taken this opportunity to update its brand.

Karacters researched how well Silver Hills’ brand was recognized and discovered that its ‘Squirrelly’ bread had a higher brand power then the Silver Hills company brand. Karacters then decided to rename each of Silver Hills’ bread types with a unique name. The new names were all created within DDB and were designed to tell the stories of the different breads. The new names include: Big 16, Hardy Hearty Harvest, Hemptation, Kings Kamut, Little Big Bread, Mack’s Flax, Marvelous Multi, Radient Raisin and Steady Eddie. Even the pack copy has been changed to have an individual tone for each of the products.

“We explored a couple of different directions. The one thing we did avoid was giving them all critter names,” said James Bateman, creative director at Karacters. “We just realized, by actually keeping them a bit eclectic, made the whole range more interesting.”

The research also showed how the packaging within the bread market all had the same features like clear bags, graphics of wheat and flat names. Silver Hills’ names had already been punched up so Karacters focused on how to make the bags stand out. To do this they went with solid color bags instead of the market-saturated clear bags.

“Human instinct is that you are attracted to nice-looking warm things,” Bateman said about the solid color matte bags. “So we created the bags in natural vibrant tones to really break through a very basic level visually on the shelves.”

Clear windows were incorporated into illustrations on the packaging to draw curious eyes to the product. The illustrations are apart of the storytelling concept for the different types of breads. United Kingdom illustrator Robert Hanson was contracted and did all the illustrations for the new designs. He was chosen for his skills in editorial illustrations and his witty characterizations. The Mack’s Flax bread has an illustration of a smiling man riding a bicycle with his scarf blowing in the wind. The wheels of the bicycle showcase the break through the clear windows.

Contact: www.karacters.com