The JOURNAL

You know that moment when someone says, “Let’s make pizza at home!” and your first thought is Eww, David? Seriously, why? Every time, it ends up costing more than delivery, tastes like disappointment, and your kitchen looks like a scene from a natural disaster movie. And then, when the smoke clears, you realize the harsh […]

How to Hire a CPG Packaging Designer. The short version: you’ve raised money for your CPG brand and now you need a packaging designer. Hire one who starts with strategy and finishes at the printer. The design is usually the quickest bit. The stuff that delays launches and quietly eats your round is everything around […]

The short answer Packaging design is expensive because you’re not paying for a pretty box. You’re paying for the decisions behind it: who it’s for, what it’s fighting on the shelf, whether the label is legal, and whether 25,000 units come off the press looking the way they should. A cheap quote covers the drawing. […]

The short answer Good olive oil packaging design starts with positioning, not the bottle. Work out who you’re selling to, where the bottle will sit and what’s actually true about your oil. Then the glass, size, label and print specs more or less pick themselves. Do it the other way round and you get a […]

How to Find a Packaging Designer. I am Australian. I live in Croatia. Most of my clients are in the US, the UK, or somewhere else entirely. I have never been in the same room as most of them. I have rarely been in the same country as the printer producing their packaging. Every single […]

Do I Need a Brand Strategist? Most founders find me thinking they need a packaging designer. They have a logo. Sometimes a rough brand direction. Occasionally they hired someone first and quietly let them go. Their product is good. So now they just want someone to make it look premium enough to justify the price. […]

How to know it’s time for a rebrand? You know it’s time to rebrand when sales have stalled, you can’t say who your brand is anymore without stumbling, and everything about it, the name, the colours, the whole vibe, feels off to you personally. If you’re asking a designer to convince you, you’re not ready […]

Every product launch is the worst episode of Grand Designs. You know the one. Couple starts with a budget, a deadline, and a dream. Three years later they are living in a caravan, the builder has ghosted, the planning permission fell through, and someone is definitely getting divorced. Product launches are the same. Whatever budget […]

Packaging Design Mistakes: 7 Signs You Need a Rebrand (and 1 You Don’t). A founder filled in my contact form last month after watching my work for the better part of a year. She did not need convincing. She had already gone the Fiverr route, watched it backfire, and worked out the cheap option is […]

CPG Packaging Design for Founders: What You’re Actually Paying For. There is no single catastrophe. That’s the first thing to understand. When packaging fails a funded founder, it’s almost never one dramatic mistake. It’s an accumulation. Little things, each one survivable on its own, stacking up until the product looks cheaper than it is and […]

Why Your Rebrand Didn’t Increase Sales. You rebranded. New logo, fresh colours, a designer who delivered something that looked the part. Sales did not move. Here is the uncomfortable answer. A rebrand to increase sales fails when it changes how the product looks without changing who the product is for. You repainted the house. The […]