The Classics...
So I'm going from one junk food to the next, I promise I'll get to healthy food packaging soon, although that doesn't sound anywhere near as fun.
Here are some examples of classic chocolate packaging found in the UK. Arguably, these are the most recognisable and iconic designs present at the moment, and are the largest chocolate brands.
Similarly to the crisp packaging of Walkers, each of these brands has a distinctive, block colour that forms the background for their packaging, and which can easily be associated with them across the food market. The Cadbury colour is a deep, regal shade of purple, that despite the more contemporary update of the rest of the packaging, signifies the history of the brand to the consumer, allowing them to stand out as a trusted chocolate producer.
Kit Kat and Mars go for louder colours, with red being the recurrence. Red is the most eye-catching colour, meaning that the packaging jumps out and attracts the customer. The use of white as the secondary colour in the Kit Kat packaging means that the presentation looks cleaner and fresher, and the black background of the Mars packaging is used possibly to create more of a temptation, as the combination of colours is often associated with the Devil, denoting that eating a Mars bar is sinful.
Cadburys is the only chocolate bar that employs a more formal Serif typeface, that again, signifies a sense of history and class when buying the dairy milk bar. Kit Kat and Mars use something more informal. Mars is more of a script style typeface, with a gold outline, which adds even more temptation, and in the script style aims it at more of a female market. Kit Kat's typeface is gothic and modern, and again creates something that looks clean and fresh.
The Newer Ones...
Most of these chocolates are not the usual ones you would find at the Supermarket. I'm being presumptuous, but I'm guessing that these are the chocolates you find at Selfridges, aimed at a more middle class market. Quality in the design is made evident through the attention to detail, the colours used are less bold and garish, and the typefaces used are more design led. The chocolates that look most appealing are Black Magic, Mast Brothers Chocolate and Divine, because they retain a classic design, whilst updating it in a more contemporary and visually appealing way. The modern gothic text on the Black Magic chocolate bars works well with the use of geometric shapes, which look almost like origami and makes it look more edgy than the previous design. The use of black and a strong colour also works well and again, creates a contemporary feel.
Mast Brothers Chocolates has more of a vintage feel, with the use of a quite nostalgic/ironic wallpaper style print adorning the packaging, however, the use if a gothic font in a box, containing minimal text, balances the print.
Divine chocolate also uses a print, but the use of colours and illustrations is more contemporary by keeping a simple colour palette, and also the use of neutrals and metallics gives it a more luxurious edge, in keeping with the name divine.
The other chocolates have used more of an irony and sense of humour, particularly in the case of the 'Bochox' and 'Girth Control', where they've played with medical terms, and the idea that chocolate is the best medicine, and the designs also play cleverly with the packaging of pharmaceutical products, with the clinical designs and the same typefaces used by the real products.
Recession Bites is more conceptual than the other chocolate packagings. The neutral colours and the use of a cardboard style packaging looks very austere and signifies the idea of the recession in the presentation of the product. The name Recession Bites, is again playful, merging the slight money issue everyone is having with the idea of eating the chocolate, and the typeface used is very bold and is possibly more aimed at men, as it is bold and chunky.
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