Why on earth would someone spend money on redesigning a label for a product that already sells incredibly well?

Hickey’s Barm Brack is a traditional, handmade, yeast-risen fruit loaf. Made in small batches, it is deliciously moist and packed with fruit and flavour. This award winning Barm Brack is stocked in multiple locations throughout Ireland and is utterly divine tasting. Barm Brack features in Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Eatlist so you should definitely try some if you haven’t before.

Previous years saw three separate labels applied to the Barm Brack and although there was nothing “wrong” with these labels they didn’t truly reflect the high-end nature of the product. There was also the time taken in applying three labels to each Barm Brack to be taken into consideration.

Originally established in the 1900s, Hickey’s Bakery has been home to no less than four generations of Hickey bakers. Nuala Hickey, the current owner, took the decision to have the Halloween Barm Brack labels redesigned. Nuala’s label printers, The Label Factory, recommended that she talk to us here in AKGraphics. We jumped at the chance to work on such an interesting design project. Lots of research followed, including eating 7 of Hickey’s legendary Barm Bracks, it is very important to have a turn understanding of the product you are designing for! We designed three different options for Nuala to choose from. She selected her preferred option which we made some tweaks to thus arriving at the final completed design. The new label design has a more premium look and better represents the quality of Hickey’s Barm Brack. A “spooky meets luxury” look was achieved.

During the design process, we worked with The Label Factory to select a textured paper and changed the print spec entirely to include a new custom shape and antique gold foil. This print finishes helped to add an extra special touch.

It’s interesting to approach a design project where the main goal is not achieving an increase in sales. The desired outcome here was to have a label that would help a potential consumer to understand that this is a special, luxury Barm Brack. We feel that the new label design does this and are very pleased with the result. Having said that we are still eager to find out, after Halloween is over, what consumer response has been in terms of actual sales because we believe that design is not just about appearance but about making business more successful too.

We recommend you do two things immediately.

1. Buy a Hickey’s Barm Brack (available online here)
2. Call us if you have a food product that deserves a label design that actually reflects how delicious it is.

If you are considering redesigning your current packaging or if you’re starting from scratch, please contact Anne on 059 9133633 or email anne@akgraphics.ie and we will guide you through this process.