People see a plain pack and assume it was easy. One colour, one line of type, a lot of space. It looks as if the designer stopped early.
Usually the opposite happened. Empty is what you get when nobody decided. Restraint is what is left after everyone has.
The Daily Base by Sunbase. The pale blue cap is the only colour on the tube.
Every blank space on a pack is a decision someone can explain. If nobody can explain it, it is empty.
Mara Hollis
Design Director
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Origin®
Two packs, one rule
Sunbase came to us with one product, a mineral SPF 50 for every morning. The shelf it would join was orange and yellow, with big numbers and beach photos.
We could have matched it. Instead the wordmark went lowercase and up the side of the tube. The front lists the facts in plain type: non-nano zinc oxide, SPF 50, PA++++, no white cast, 30 ml. The cap carries the colour.
That front took longer than a loud one would have. A beach claim came off. A sun graphic came off. The small asterisk next to the name stayed, because it does the sun's job in one character.
Toki's can went further. It carries no wordmark at all, only a cherry blossom on the green. The tin and the pouch beside it do the naming.
How we test it
We take the pack to where it will be used. For Sunbase that was a bathroom shelf, next to a toothbrush and a bar of soap. A quiet tube that disappears there has failed. One that still reads from the doorway has done its job.
Then we ask what each empty area is doing. Space around a wordmark gives it room. Space with no reason is a gap someone forgot to fill. Every blank area on the front should have an answer when someone asks why it is there.
Restraint is not a style. It is a short list of things we chose not to do, short enough that the things we did can be seen.
