Bulldog Design: The Honest Kitchen Packaging Refresh

Let’s be honest, our pets are more than just pets—they’re four-legged family members. We love them, spoil them, and of course, feed them the very best foods. That’s why we love The Honest Kitchen, a human-grade food formulated especially for your pet’s optimal nutrition.

As a longtime client and partner, The Honest Kitchen came to us looking to refresh their existing packaging to make sure they are communicating their messaging loud and clear. Our first step in the redesign process was to meet with the passionate owners to truly understand what’s important to them when purchasing pet food and what they look at for on the packaging. Next, we investigated the current market to see what pet owners are faced with when scanning pet store shelves. Using the insights gathered, as well as The Honest Kitchen’s mantra that all pets should eat proper food, we got to work.

We looked at revising the messaging hierarchy and developing a design language that emphasizes the culinary nature of the food. Each ingredient is prominently displayed on the front of the packaging for quick consumer recognition. And a “Just Add Water” icon was created to illustrate the natural method of preparation. Using a carefully selected mix of fonts, hand-drawn ingredients, illustrated pet silhouettes and playful language we established a sincere and lighthearted tonality that directly reflects the personality of The Honest Kitchen brand.

We created the new packaging line with consumer shopping behavior at the center. We designed the boxes so they can be merchandised as a cohesive set with all fronts together for maximum visual impact on-shelf – and a combination of fronts and sides to draw consumers in to read and explore further.

The result? The newly refreshed packaging is unlike anything you’ll see on pet food store shelves today. The feedback has consistently been that all of our early stage insights and objectives have indeed been accomplished. The Honest Kitchen has experienced an upswing in new product orders from both existing and new retailers.

And judging from all the empty dog bowls here at Bulldog’s office, our pets think it tastes great too.

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