Packaging Herald: Marlenka Bets on Modern Typography

Marlenka Bets on Modern Typography

The popular Marlenka honey cakes and desserts are undergoing a radical transformation of their look. The creation of the new design took more than two years. The new packaging was co-designed by MARLENKA’s internal team and the renowned agency Kantors Creative Club. The goal was to create a unified concept for the full portfolio, including licensed products. We talked about the path that led to the new design with Vojtěch Halamíček, Marketing Manager at MARLENKA.

What led you to redesign Marlenka after so many years?

Our design has always been among the best in the industry. But time has moved on and we felt the need to innovate and refresh the design to stay at the top. The packaging no longer met today’s aesthetic standards in Czechia and particularly abroad. The packaging didn’t stand out among our competitors any more, since so many other companies basically copied our design or parts of it. The individual packaging designs weren’t unified and didn’t create any brand block, and the use of our branding was inconsistent in terms of both our packaging and brand style. Our goal, therefore, was to completely innovate the visual style, unify it, and streamline communication across channels. We have redesigned the entire Marlenka portfolio, including licensed products, which will now use a single visual concept.

You conducted a survey before the redesign – what was it about?

The market survey focused on several key areas. The first of them was to identify and evaluate current trends in packaging design across all markets. This was followed by benchmarking with the world’s biggest brands; we didn’t compare ourselves only against the cake segment, but also with our competitors in a very broad sense, that is, the makers of various types of confectionery and sweet products, including chocolate and ice cream. We also analysed consumer responses to our current packaging using heat maps. We then used these to verify the functionality of the new packaging.

What was the brief for the new look of Marlenka and its logo?

There were several key requirements: we wanted to create an iconic layout that would be clearly distinguishable, modern, and timeless. We also aimed to come up with a more premium design and through high-end photography and foodstyling make the packaging more attractive and encourage impulse buying. The creation of a brand block with the help of our corporate colour aimed to give us much better visibility on shelves. The change of concept in identifying flavours not by full-colour packaging but by a reduced descriptor was a fundamental and necessary step. As part of the redesign, we naturally also removed all distracting elements and used modern typography.

Who did you invite as collaborators?

On the basis of our long-term experience with various companies, we chose the Kantors Creative Club agency, which had worked on our packaging before. Kantors is a famous agency that works for many global brands and its outputs are among the best not only in the Czech Republic, but on the world market.

How many designs did the agency prepare for you?

For the packaging concept, we were looking at four different directions. All of them were very well made and could work. We picked the layout that we’re currently applying on our packaging mainly for its original and timeless character, but also because it is unmistakable.

What makes it timeless and unmistakable?

One of our key requirements was to stand out from our competitors, because, as I have said, many brands have plagiarised our original design (even quite recently) and we needed a major departure from other brands. So the new design is not only original, but also timeless in its concept, photographs, and modern typography. We are convinced that with some minor adjustments, it could last for six to seven years. The new design also clearly communicates not only the unmistakable Marlenka brand, but also the premium character of its truly first-class products.

What’s different about the iconic little girl’s head in your logo?

The picture of the girl’s head is now more modern and stylised and uses gold to highlight the premium character of the design even more. We also have new rules for its use; it can now be used in only one position in the logo and won’t be variable, as it used to be.

You’ve also changed the typeface; what’s your new font?

Unifying and reducing the number of fonts on the packaging was a necessary step. We now use typefaces from the Creative Vintage and Draft families on our packaging and Myriad Pro for legislation-related texts, which must be easy to read even when very small.

What graphic elements connect the individual products?

The main unifying elements are the overall layout and the Marlenka Cream colour. We now finally have a functional design concept that creates a brand block. Unlike with the previous packaging, individual flavours are not differentiated by the colour of the whole packaging, which was unsustainable, but through photographs and descriptors in a range of colour variations.

Which design elements have been added or removed from the packaging?

We removed everything that doesn’t play a role in the consumer’s decision making, whether rational or emotional, and was largely distracting. These were, for example, various logos and seals. As I mentioned, the packaging is now graphically “cleaner”. We now use high-class frontal photographs of the products, completely different from before, and have added a big logo on the side of the cardboard box which creates an interesting and very strong effect when multiple products are displayed on a supermarket shelf.

Can you tell us who makes the packaging? Did you also make other changes alongside the redesign?

Our suppliers are part of our know-how and business success. The construction of the packaging and their materials are largely the same. For two product lines, we’re changing the production line at the same time, which required some more intervention. Selected objects on the packaging will use embossing and in some cases cold foil stamping. A major change was the introduction of a matt finish. This matches the premium character of the product better and will be kept across other printed media.

Let’s go back in time. You performed a minor facelift of the logo five years ago. What was that about?

The 2019 facelift of our logo replaced the photo of the founder’s daughter with a silhouette. Our working title for this version was the “GDPR design”, because one of the reasons was actually complaints from several markets where it was impossible to register and use a logo bearing the photo of a real person. The new logotype has been fully innovated, rejuvenated, and simplified. We changed the font, designed specifically for Marlenka, and the iconic silhouette of the little girl. The aim was also to simplify the logo and improve its readability from a distance, which is also true of the packaging design.

Packaging Herald, issue 56, 11–12/2024. The online version of the article can be found here.