I had a great time speaking at the recent FoodWorx: The Future of Food conference. It was exciting to hear speakers from many different aspects of the food industry as well, all focused on the future of food. This conference has been called the TEDx of food, and you can watch my session on the powerful connection of food and color below. Would love to hear your thoughts on this subject!
Food & Color: A Powerful Connection
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Hi, I’m Jenn David Connolly, creative strategist and founder of Jenn David Design. For over 20 years I’ve partnered with specialty food brands to create powerful, distinct, strategic design that commands attention and gets results.
Meet Me
Great presentation! I’ve always loved the Pocky cookies and cream packaging colors, I never realized that the cookies and cream colors were based on the oreo packaging. So cool & interesting.
Thanks for sharing your presentation, it was great to watch.
Color wise I’ve always wondered why raspberry was identified as electric blue in kids candy flavors. I thought it might be because, as you said, red is associated with cherry and strawberry.
What I’m curious about is the placement of color coding on the packaging – if the color coding is more effective placing at the top of the packaging or at the bottom? I had thought that for small products that get stacked up and don’t get much shelf space, like chocolate bars, they would have the color coding at the top so it would be easier to see in the display boxes, but from my google searches it looks like most packaging keeps the branding consistent at the the top of the packaging and the color coding at the bottom. I wonder why they don’t put a bit of the color coding at the top? I’ve also seen some companies change the color of the brand name to the flavor color, I wonder how effective this is too, if it actually makes the product less identifiable to the consumer in that 3 second window you were talking about.
Such an interesting topic, again, really enjoyed your presentation, thanks for sharing it!
🙂
Hi Meegan,
Thanks for your thoughts and you bring up good points.
As for placement of color coding, there is not standard for usability for placement of this in my opinion other than to make sure it is prominent and noticeable. The whole face of the product is displayed on the shelf, without other items blocking it, so having it low down is OK as long as it’s prominent enough.
As for logos changing color, it all depends on the branding, design and usage. Some logos must be identical in use no matter what, while other branding is more fluid and has the ability to adapt colors based on the usage. Again there is no right or wrong here as long as it works and is effective.
Best,
Jenn