Marino Institute of Education Strategic Report

Marino Institute of Education Strategic Report 2021-26.

The report’s focus is on how ‘Education Transforms Lives’, and how enabling people from all backgrounds of life (for example, from disabilities to financial hardship) to further education, will empower them and give them greater opportunities in life.

We co-created the report in collaboration with Laura Macaulay at NavigatebyDesign. We used a gradient colour system throughout to indicate the transforming aspect of this report, with bright images of the students, lecturers and the lovely Marino grounds. The report is a complex piece of work, developed with MIE over an extended period of time.

We worked carefully in communicating a large amount of information in an easy-to-read digestible manner, maintaining the professional feel that an education body like Marino Institute would like to convey, in a clean and fresh style. It was also important to maintain the Marino brand colour palette and showcase the college grounds, societies, people and facilities. The report is flipped in half between an English and Irish language version of the report. The printing of this report is FSC Certified, supporting sustainability and the environment by using paper when printing that is FSC approved.

The launch event for this important body of work took place in the Nagle Rice hall on the beautiful grounds of Marino in North Dublin, hosted by TD and Minister for Further and Higher Education, Simon Harris. Everyone was very happy with the design of the finalised printed report and the success of the launch event.

Tara Gartlan Chocolate – Brand Packaging Design

Branding, Design, Packaging

Tara Gartlan Chocolate: Brand Packaging Design

Introducing the Brand Packaging Design for Tara Gartlan Chocolate – luxury handmade chocolate bonbons, created by Michelin star pastry chef Tara Gartlan.

Each chocolate collection is like a work of art – every chocolate is meticulously handmade with beautiful designs, which lead to us creating the tagline ‘The Art of Chocolate’, highlighting the word ‘Art’ tucked within Tara Gartlan’s name. Cocoa butter is used artfully for decoration and all recipes are expertly crafted by Tara Gartlan. They look almost too good to eat! But once you do, you’ll be reaching for another one.

We took the initials ‘TG’ from Tara Gartlan’s name and created a strong graphic symbol with it, taking cues from the flowing nature of chocolate and incorporating droplets, like with chocolate dripping. There is a subtle ‘c’ within the base of the ‘G’ for the word ‘chocolate’ and also for ‘coeliac’, as these chocolates are coeliac-friendly.

The beautiful boxes exude quality, the gold-detailed curvy lines take cues from the free-flowing way that chocolate is poured and the natural flowing lines in nature, as many of the ingredients are grown locally, guaranteeing the most fragrant flavours.

They are made with Valrhona chocolate and filled with beautifully seasonal ingredients. They are Gluten Free but the secret is – you wouldn’t know! Sometimes gluten free is perceived to be less tasty but I gave them to people to try and only told them after and they were shocked!

JJ O’Toole Ltd did a beautiful job on printing the packaging at a very premium standard – and are also a pleasure to deal with. All chocolate collections are available on www.taragartlan.com

Brand Guidelines & Assets

A colour palette with many possibilities, the Tara Gartlan Chocolate brand identity is sophisticated, elegant, premium, Irish and a true reflection of the high quality and standard of our chocolates and service.

Follow Tara Gartlan Chocolate on Social Media:

Instagram: @taragartlanchocolate

Twitter / X: TaraGChocolate

Order Tara Gartlan Chocolates here: www.taragartlan.com

Clare Anne Taylor Couture Cakes – Brand Packaging Design

Branding, Design, Packaging

Clare Anne Taylor Couture Cakes: Brand Packaging Design

Clare Anne Taylor Couture Cakes are one of Ireland’s leading luxury cake designers for special events and weddings. The core of the business is luxurious quality and elegance in the design and craft of their cakes and confections.

The client, Clare Anne Taylor, wanted the packaging to be suitable for gifting. When bringing to someone, the box should be beautiful and elegant enough to give the feel of a gift presentation. She wanted the brand to epitomise the highest standard and quality available on the market.

The client needed to easily separate between the ranges, while maintaining a consistent brand style. A PMS colour palette was created for each range, to create clarity in differentiating between the ranges. A pink swatch was selected for the main Clare Anne Collection, green for the Signature Collection for confectionery and a Warm Grey for the Couture Collection. Clare Anne had been using similar colours to these in her labelling as she liked the soft, feminine tones. We therefore developed these colour swatches to slightly deeper hues, to allow the brand to stand out more prominently, as the existing colours were quite faded, making legibility a little difficult.

Another way to separate the ranges in a subtle, sophisticated manner was to alternate the strapline/tagline under the brand name/logo for each range. In the brief, Clare mentioned that she would like to exceed expectations for customers. Therefore, for the main ‘Clare Anne Collection’ range, I created the tagline ‘Exceeding Expectations’. This was then changed to the individual range names for the ‘Signature Collection’ and the ‘Couture Collection’.

For the main Clare Anne range, we created the concept of a pink, bow sleeve around kraft boxes, to meet the brief’s aim of communicating the experience of receiving a beautiful gift. Clare wanted to showcase the beautiful artistry of the cakes within, therefore we designed a large window on the front of the boxes to meet the brief’s aims, leaving space at the back of the boxes for possible ingredient/nutritional labels to be added per cake, as each cake is bespoke.

For the box and sleeve design, the design is simple and minimal to convey the quality of the brand. The boxes and sleeves feature a delicate floral illustration to connect to the beautiful artistic floral designs that Clare creates on her cakes. Another factor used to communicate the level of quality is the premium standard of printing of the kraft boxes and pink sleeves. The Signature Collection features a green interior with three different inserts for various types of confectionery. The e-commerce box was created to hold the confectionery boxes securely for delivery. The printing specialists that we worked with to reach our design requirements and unique print specifications for this project’s packaging range was JJ O’Toole.

See more about Clare Anne Taylor Couture Cakes:

Instagram: instagram.com/taylorclareanne

Website: clareannetaylor.ie

A Good Mood Food Packaging Design

Branding, Design, Packaging

A Good Mood Food Brand Packaging Design

A Good Mood Food creates flavoursome and healthy dips, made with real ingredients, locally sourced. The branding is based around the idea that when you eat healthy, you eat yourself happy, as you are nurturing your mind and body by feeding it with goodness.

The packaging communicates this happy and fun vibrancy that the dips brings to the consumer with the big smile, showcasing the tasty dips within. The strapline ‘Eat Happy’ further emphasises this. Each flavour is easily distinguished by colour – linking with the colour as the main ingredients inside – such as deep pink for the ‘Beetroot’ flavour and warm yellow for the ‘Curried Carrot’ flavour. There is also a new green ‘Garlic’ flavour coming soon.

Each artisan pot is lovingly crafted with ingredients sourced locally. They carefully select the best produce from nearby farms, which is then expertly seasoned and blended with rich local yogurt to create indulgent dips that are made from over 50% vegetables. The leaves placed over the ‘o’ in the typography of the logo, link to how there are healthy, local and natural ingredients used in the dips.

The benefits and unique selling points are clearly highlighted with icons, such as how are the healthy dips are Vegetarian, Gluten-free and Made in Ireland, encouraging consumers to buy local, as a growing trend is how people in Ireland want to support local, Irish businesses and the environment which reduces the carbon footprint by purchasing products made by local businesses who source local ingredients. The cardboard sleeves are recyclable and can also be kept as a keepsake, as the inside of the packs feature tasty recipe suggestions which are handy to stick on the fridge! This further reduces waste as the sleeves can have a longer life.

These tasty dips are made with love in West Cork. They are available in SuperValu stores in Cork, to purchase online at Farmsy and in local Farmer’s Markets such as Rohu’s Country Market in Cork. Find out more on their website.

A Good Mood Food partners with Food Cloud to maintain a Zero Food Waste business, they work with their local branch to help redistribute any extra products among the community. This prevents disposing of any extra waste. Food Cloud help provide over 5 million meals yearly to people in need resulting in 2,450 tonnes of food being redistributed and received by charities across Ireland. This is just one of the ways A Good Mood Food operate to keep their business sustainable and care for the community. It helps to ensure that every time their products are purchased, a local business is being supported.

As a group, the packaging of the tubs together look like a group of smiling, happy characters – full of energy and life. A Good Mood Food create food that feels good. Keep an eye on their Instagram page for tasty recipe suggestions.

*Photography:

Brendan Ryan Photography & Emma Jervis Photography

Photo Styling:
Clare Lynch & Betsy Gach

Saltrock Dairy Packaging Design

Branding, Design, Packaging

Saltrock Dairy Brand Packaging Design

Saltrock Dairy is a contemporary fresh brand, bringing milk to consumers in a new, innovative and sustainable way. Saltrock Farm pasteurise their own milk from their family farm, cutting out unnecessary food milage to bring customers their ‘Daily Dose of Dairy‘. The milk is non-homogenised, local and farm-fresh.

Milk and milkshakes are available to be dispensed via self-vending units, in branded trailers at local Farmers Markets. The customer takes one of the retro bottles of Saltrock Dairy (or several bottles) and fills it up via the vending unit, then when it’s empty, they wash it and bring it back and refill it. This concept is innovative and contributes to a circular economy as customers bring their bottle back to re-use and refill each time and it doesn’t need to go through the processing of recycling plants.

This message is clearly and cleverly communicated in the logo and brand packaging, with a milk drop dripping from the letter ‘K’ in the typography of the word ‘Saltrock’ in the logo, dropping down to the bottle below. The brand is retro, edgy and unique – bringing fresh and traditional milk to consumers in a new and innovative way. There is a grain texture within the font, to communicate the natural and farm-fresh aspect of the milk. On the back, there are droplet markers which indicate the amount left in the bottle, to make it easy for users to tell when they need to refill. This is also helpful when working out measurements when baking.

We worked with Saltrock Dairy on designing the branding from start to finish, to include the logo, the brand guidelines to include the brand colour palette and typography, the packaging design of a range of bottle sizes, the wooden branded crate, the vending unit and the trailer graphics. The client and her daughters were a pleasure to work with, adding their energy and enthusiasm to bring this innovative new brand to life.

See more about how the self-service vending unit works here. Saltrock Dairy hails from the foot of Tara Hill in Gorey, Co. Wexford and can be found in nearby locations. Give them a follow on their Instagram page to find out where you can next spot the Saltrock Dairy trailer.

*As seen on RTE’s The Late Late Show.

*A big thank you to Brendan Ryan Photography for the brand photos and Betsy Gach for assisting with the photo styling.

As featured on The Late Late TV Show.