Case study

For three centuries, Fortnum & Mason Plc has inspired Londoners and tourists with the world’s most fabulous foods.

Our brief, as part of their major store and brand refurbishment, was to create packaging designs with contemporary twists on Fortnum’s Georgian magnificence and fine food values.

I like to find a great story in products and tell it through design. So, we put food-inspired Neoclassical stories at the heart of the new packaging designs.

Slice a pickled walnut in half, and you’ll find it resembles a wall pattern typical of the Etruscan style. Our fiery Chinese stem ginger design was inspired by the magnificent beast that once sat on top of The House of Confucius in Kew Gardens.

Our smoked salmon design was inspired by the fish shapes on a neoclassical wall panel. And, our cheese jar design was inspired by circular-shaped soffit patterns, that conveniently resemble rows of maturing cheese truckles, originally seen at Neal’s Yard in Borough Market.

The head of a ram, or aegricanes, was frequently used as a motif in neoclassical design and often combined with festoons draped from the horns. Based on an original Robert Adam motif, we extended the idea across a herd of animal icons and gave each a distinctive decoration. The stag’s horns were given a jewelled chandelier; the pig was given a wreath of acorns–which they naturally feed on; the game bird was given a head dress of wheat ears–this being their natural habitat; and the bull was given an ornamental nose ring–in real life the only way to control the unruly beast.

And so the story goes on…

For this program of work, my team was rostered alongside two world-leading branding agencies – Pearlfisher and Williams Murray Hamm. We redesigned over 20 ranges across 150 SKUs in less than 18 months.