The Packaging Went Out. Literally.

*What we like about Betty Crocker’s handbags, beyond the fact that they look like cake.*

A packaging redesign usually has a respectable, predictable life. It gets approved, photographed and put on a shelf. The agency publishes a case study. Everyone thanks everyone for being brave. The box gets on with its job.

Betty Crocker added a cake-slice handbag to the itinerary. An entire collection, in fact: The Betty Ate Collection, built around the brand’s product imagery and refreshed design. The colours and shapes found another home. One you could take out for the evening. The collection and redesign — General Mills

We enjoy seeing packaging acquire a social life. The brand gets to become part of someone’s personal choice: they actively decide to carry the thing. Earning that kind of attention takes more than booking ad space.

For a designer, it’s also a useful test:

What happens when the design leaves the presentation? Is its character still recognisable at another scale, in another material, somewhere else entirely? What survives when its creator isn’t standing beside it, ready to explain the concept?

Some visual identities are at their happiest in a deck. The background, the lighting, the ideal customer: everything has been selected. There’s even an angle from which the future appears to have arrived. Life has the irritating habit of looking from all the other angles.

Still, a cake-shaped bag doesn’t automatically prove the strength of a particular brand. Cake has broad appeal. Nobody has copyrighted appetite yet. People might remember the clever object and forget who made it. So we care about the connection: does this story lead back to the product? Does it help people recognise something familiar on the shelf?

That is the kind of potential worth considering while developing packaging. Which element could have a life beyond it? What would be interesting to hold, wear or bring into a physical space? Where can the design hold its own?

Nobody needs to rush out and launch a handbag. Especially if they sell cement. But it’s worth asking what your design could do beyond the approved mock-up. Perhaps the box has been ready for bigger things all along. Nobody thought to ask.