The JOURNAL

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 […]

Olive Oil Packaging Design. Graza put premium olive oil in a plastic squeeze bottle and built a cult following. Perliano used dark glass, gold foil, and a considered label. Sold out in three weeks with no ads. Two completely different approaches to olive oil packaging design. Both worked. That is exactly the point. Packaging is […]

Supplement Packaging Design Cost. What Founders Pay in 2026 By the time most supplement founders get to me, they’re already broke. Not broke broke. Broke in the way founders get broke. They’ve paid the formulator. The lab bill came in higher than expected. Then the regulatory consultant told them the FDA structure/function claim on the […]

What luxury packaging design actually means. A few months ago I had a discovery call with the loveliest founder. Beautiful luxury fragrance. Genuinely incredible product. The kind of perfume you smell once and remember for a week. Then she sent me her packaging. The outer box looked like the carton my €30 collagen shots come […]

If you Googled “what is a CPG packaging designer” and landed on ten agency pages telling you they “craft compelling visual narratives for consumer packaged goods,” close the tabs. That’s not an answer. It’s a LinkedIn headline with a thesaurus open. Here’s the real one. A CPG packaging designer is the person responsible for turning […]

Packaging Design Mistakes. You’ve got a great product. You’ve done the hard yards. Sorted the formula, found a manufacturer, convinced yourself the market’s ready. And then you slap some packaging on it, launch, and… nothing. Not because your product is bad. Because your packaging is doing you dirty. After years of working with CPG founders, […]

Read about packaging that stands out on store shelves I was in a founder forum recently. Someone had posted a photo of their fruit pouch packaging asking which tagline would work better. The packaging was beautiful. Soft, warm, illustrated. A little rabbit on the front, earthy tones, the kind of thing that makes you want […]

Do you want to work with the person who sold you the work or the person actually doing it? That’s the question nobody in the packaging design industry wants you to ask out loud. So I will. Packaging Design Agency vs Studio: The Honest Version You hired the agency. Great call with someone senior. Charming. […]