TGIF Packaging Decadence?…. A Nigella Lawson Student Spotlight
I’m a huge Nigella Lawson fan. Part of it is that I love to bake and her cookbooks are filled with simple from scratch baking recipes that turn out fabulously tasty treats. They’re the types of cookies, cakes and other goodies that you can actually spontaneously decide to make and then eat in an hour without a lot of grief.
The other part is that she exhibits no food shaming. In a culture that obsesses over calorie counts and eating healthy while alternately stuffing themselves with not so tasty fast-food, it’s nice to see someone who cooks good tasting food from scratch. Sure many of the recipes are unashamedly a little on the decadent side (without Paula Deen’s seeming complete disregard for basic health), but it’s not that hard to pair them with some healthy sides for a great weekday meal. You see, I agree with Michael Pollan in that if you make your treats from scratch (cookies, cakes, french fries, whatever your favorite treat is) you’ll eat it about as often as you should because of the time involved in making it.
So with that Nigella Lawson love-a-thon ramp-up, you can guess why I wanted to post this. I really, really wanted to love this packaging design by Beatrice Menis, a student of ELISAVA, Barcelona. (If only so that maybe Nigella would see it and be inspired to role out a food product line… fingers crossed).
But, I just can’t help thinking IKEA every time I see the food packaging.
I’m pretty certain it’s all of the white negative space coupled with simple food images and the general emphasis on typography, which was intentional according to the designer:
All of the designs are mainly based on one common element: typography, I chose typography because I wanted to give an elegant and traditional look to the line.
So while I do appreciate IKEA’s food (Swedish meatballs, almond cake and lingonberry jam…oh my) and their food packaging design aesthetic, see previous post, no brand wants their packaging to remind a consumer of a competitor instead of luring them into buying their product.
What do you think? Is this just me?
