Robot Food updates Stories & Ink for a retail first future.

Robot Food has created the new packaging design for Stories & Ink, a dedicated skincare brand for tattooed skin, following their acquisition of key retail listings in Target across the US and a big-name retailer in the UK, which is soon to be announced.

Founded by Stu Jolley and Robot Food founder Simon Forster, Stories & Ink is a category leading tattoo skincare brand, dedicated to making products for an audience previously ignored. After success as a UK centric direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand, Stories & Ink needed to evolve to take advantage of the unique challenges faced in retail. With a broadening of the brand’s channel mix to now cover DTC, retail and wholesale, the packaging required an update to better communicate the brand at shelf.

“We’d worked really hard to build an amazing community online amongst an underrepresented audience”, says Stu Jolley Stories & Ink Founder. “Selling digitally allows the brand experience to be much more immersive, but the retail reality is very different. We knew our understated approach wouldn’t work in that environment, so we worked with Robot Food to create the impact at shelf we need to succeed”.

Shifting emphasis

Within a digital retail landscape, packaging is the final part of the experience – received once the consumer has already made an emotional investment in the brand. Complex product information is brought to life across digital platforms, alongside rich branded content that serves to cultivate loyalty through a deeper connection with the audience it serves.

Within a traditional retail environment, the packaging is not only the first, but often the only, method of communicating to the target consumer. Where the packaging previously served as an extension of the brand experience, it is now the sole connection point and needs to adapt considerably in its approach.

Robot Food’s Senior Designer, Craig Lindsay expands, “Designing for retail always provides its own set of challenges. Already a successful DTC design, our work was about keeping the aesthetic that people know and love, but strengthening our assets and making our benefits clear so the packs stand out and are instantly gettable on shelf.”

Strategic evolution

The packaging needed to immediately communicate what it is and why it deserved a space in the consumer’s cart. To do this, Robot Food first reviewed the layout and hierarchy of messaging to facilitate an easy range navigation for the consumer within a busy retail environment. The products’ unique selling points (USPs) needed to be communicated clearly and prominently, with the front and side faces used to maximum effect. Bold colour was introduced to further aid navigation, whilst ensuring cut through at shelf to stand out amongst a predominantly monochrome beauty fixture.

Imagery of each product was included on the side face to allow consumers to discern texture and visually connect with the product inside. Efficacy cues were also key, with ingredients pulled out as annotated callouts to help provide a quick and informative snapshot of the product within.

With the brand already well established within the DTC space, the packaging still needed to connect with the expression the current audience knows and loves. The brand identity was retained alongside the brand’s unique ‘flashcard’ illustrations created by illustrator Tom Gilmore, repositioned on pack for impact.

New fonts; Engineer Black and Roboto Mono have been introduced to add more personality and authority into the design and reflect the brand’s progressive nature and efficacious formulations. These more tech influenced fonts juxtapose the brands roots in handcrafted tattoo culture, as depicted by the Tom Gilmore illustrations.

Finally, the brand’s ethos of ‘Inklusivity for all’ has been stated loud and proud on pack, with a brand story that reflects the progressive and inclusive tattoo community the brand is eager to continue to support.

Hitting the target

Above all, the project was about setting the brand up for long term success with their shift to an omni-channel strategy from a digital only focus.

Simon Forster, Co-Founder of Stories & Ink and Founder of Robot Food adds, “The difference between packaging design for online selling and retail is nuanced but significant, and even more so when considering designing for a global audience with altering retail experiences. We are incredibly excited for the next phase of the Stories & Ink journey and happy Robot Food can continue to provide essential strategic support to the brand as it grows and takes advantage of new opportunities to expand. Robot Food’s experience working across both DTC and retail brands in the US and across the world has proven invaluable.”

In the US, Stories & Ink products will be available in Target at selected stores nationally from Tuesday 27^th February. In the UK, you’ll find Stories & Ink on shelf in selected stores nationally from the end of March.

Source: Robot Food

  Branding, Packaging Design, Robot Food, Skincare, Stories & Ink