Redesigning the packaging of an established FMCG brand isn’t about revolution, but precision. About the ability to make changes without the customer noticing — yet still enough for them to feel it. How do you approach brands that work, sell, and carry decades of trust? Carefully, strategically, and with respect. Exactly as you would treat a family legacy.
There are projects you simply do. And then there are projects you approach with a bit of held breath. Redesigning a large, well-established brand clearly belongs to the latter category.
When a client calls you who has been building their brand for 20 years — sometimes even longer — and tells you they want to move the brand forward, it’s a unique mix of emotions. On one hand, a great honor. On the other, respect. And somewhere in between, a healthy level of pressure. Because you know you’re not touching an ordinary product. You’re touching something with history, value, and customers who buy it automatically, without thinking.
With projects like these, I always tell myself one thing: no unnecessary heroics. We’re not here to save the brand. It already works. It sells. It has a strong position in the market. Our role is far more subtle — to move it forward, not to tear it down. To preserve everything that works while preparing it for what’s next. To respect its visual memory, the way people recognize it on the shelf, and how they perceive it without thinking. Because the moment a customer starts to question whether they’re holding “their product,” something has gone wrong.
Paradoxically, the best feedback you can get is: “It’s the same.” And that’s exactly the point. Until you place the old and the new packaging side by side. That’s when the differences start to stand out.
The typography is more precise, the colors cleaner, the composition more balanced, and the hierarchy clearer. Every detail is different, yet the whole feels the same. This is what we call incremental change. A discipline that is often more demanding than large, radical redesigns.
Because here, there’s nowhere to hide a mistake.The biggest challenge doesn’t come when a brand isn’t working. It comes when it’s working perfectly. The product is a market leader, sales are strong, the customer is satisfied — and you’re supposed to come in and “do something with it.” The reason is simple: the world is changing faster than brands. Generations are shifting, the visual language is evolving, expectations are rising. And if a brand stands still, it starts to age.
Generation Z also comes into play — a group many believe they don’t understand. We’re fortunate to have them directly in our team. We observe how they think, what they consider authentic, and what no longer is. And we try to translate this language into design in a way that doesn’t feel forced. Because most brands aren’t for just one generation, but for several at once. And that’s exactly why change must be subtle, gradual, yet still clearly recognizable.
Every redesign is essentially a decision about one thing: how big a step forward a brand can afford to take.
Sometimes it’s a small shift, other times a bigger intervention, and sometimes we’re already talking about repositioning. Should the brand feel more premium or more accessible? Should it appeal to a younger audience or strengthen its broader base? Should the layout change, the portfolio architecture, the way it communicates on the shelf? These are all questions we need to answer before we draw the first line.And then there’s something more. You can have analyses, data, and experience, but there’s always one thing that can’t be fully defined. Intuition. That moment when you know it works. That the brand is still itself — just a slightly better version.
We call it the X factor. And honestly, that’s exactly what makes the difference between a good redesign and one that no one even notices… yet still performs better.
