Project Statement

Throughout my project I have explored the purchasing market within the food industry and different elements that are causing the changes towards a more sustainable future. My research looked into how the modern consumers are being more ethically driven within they're purchasing pattern causing a developments in the plant based market. ‘Consumers are looking to the private sector to make a change and using they're purchasing power to demand transparency, accountability and social responsibility from the companies they do business with’ (Mainwaring, 2018). This shift is coming consumers being more aware of the affects theirtheir consumption can have, the practical side on this project is and intervention to sustainable consumption, pushing people towards a more informed decision when choosing their products. The practical consisted of a rebrand of Heck sausages in a campaign with Veganuary to take a different approach in steering people away from meat by encouraging them to try plant based products alongside meat, making there later decisions more informed. It consisted of a plant based product, meat product and a 2 advertisements to back it up, This was inspired by the growing numbers of Flexiteriains in the UK, “The their trend carves a very accessible and unrestricted middle ground between simply meat eaters and non-meat eaters,” says Mintel’s senior food analyst Emma Clifford. On top of the various benefits animal welfare, health and environmental, it’s also become aspirational, she adds, with social media playing an important role in the attraction of this endeavour’ (Burrows, 2018). Creating a brand that was neutral yet still appealing it opened my demographic to being more diverse by not segregating anyone through design, allowing the sustainable trends to grow. 

The main problem I ran into was creating a neutral brand that looked appealing to both diets, I feel I successfully did this by taking elements of typical branding of wither sides and using the strongest design strategies from each one enticing them to make a cohesive product. I wanted the type and logo to be the most engaging part of the packaging as I was following the Information deficit model where information is key in getting people to change their behaviour, also took reference from previous successful began products who used large stroke dark typefaces like Beyond meat and Wicked Kitchen(used Veganuary font Barrio). Because of the information being the key part the background and colour needed to be soft so they information could stand out, I changed the colours a lot throughout the process as it is hard to find neutral in food as it is so subjective. The colours I chose which were sampled from the veganuary swatch to me was the perfect middle ground of the bright colours of vegan branding and the darker tones of meat branding. Improvements that I would make on the project would be to extend the range of products within the campaign to give people more options to chose again widening the demographic. In terms of the design I would like to continue playing around with the typelogo as I showed it in many different variants, it could change product to product. I would also like to collect more information about the products so I can relay that on to the customer delivering more on the information deficit model theory as it would be more inclined to change consumer behaviour if they are informed. 

In terms of linking to my essay my practical flows nicely as my essay focuses on consumption and other theories surrounding it and fuelling it, then my practical is a intervention to sustainable consumption in trying to get people to change their buying habits to a more sustainable rate through informing there choice.