Creating an Iconic Brand Through Retail Packaging

From McDonald’s golden arches to the Nike swoosh, we’ve been associating iconic imagery with some of the world’s most successful brands for decades. In 1973, Italian designer Massimo Vignelli created one such piece of iconography for Bloomingdales department stores. Shopping bags, sporting modern font with the words “Little Brown Bag,” “Medium Brown Bag” and “Big Brown Bag,” became a part of American culture, identified and associated with upscale shoppers in urban areas like New York City.

The bags, made of natural-looking brown paper, have a charming quality that has transcended fads for years. Despite the high adoption rate of canvas totes and reuasable shopping bags amongst green, savvy shoppers, these little, medium and big brown bags communicate a specific message about the customer and brand.

That’s what good retail packaging is all about – telling a story. It’s the first thing customers see, making it the perfect canvas to let creativity shine. Customers buy with their eyes, after all, and we truly believe whoever communicates best wins. There’s something about the classic brown bag look that evokes certain emotions in consumers. Whether it’s the lovingly packed school lunch they carried with them on to school as children, or the exciting package they can’t wait to have arrive on their door step, brown paper makes a statement and has the potential to tell a great story.

When it comes to food packaging, tea packaging, coffee packaging or other small products, brands have the unique opportunity to evoke these same sensory memories and feelings with their retail packaging. Kraft stand up pouches, made with natural-looking brown kraft paper, act as a blank slate that designers are just itching to get their hands on. Brown bags give shoppers the sense that the product inside has been artfully crafted and that presentation and quality are important to the producer. Kraft stand up pouches are a unique kind of retail packaging that blends both the care and creativity of an artisinal small business with the luxury and modern aesthetic of a big brand like Bloomingdales.

It’s time to put your brand’s story on paper. Take control of your product from the day its recipe is perfected to the moment it hits supermarket shelves. Design your own retail packaging to make a statement and standout amongst the thousands of products customers see every day. Capture the feel of the classic brown bag with kraft stand up pouches, and you’re already on your way to creating an iconic piece of modern culture.