Dominic Tong's range of premium ice creams used fresh milk from the Myrtle Farm Hereford herd, piles of real fruit and very little else. Selling directly to delicatessens in the South East and London, Dominic wanted a brandmark and packaging that would sell the product benefits straight off the freezer shelf, with the minimum of point of sale material.

For a small company like Dominic's, the minimum order quantity for ice cream pots was a problem. Ten thousand of each variety would have filled the dairy. So before we did anything else, a means had to be found to minimise the stock holding. Several long discussions with Dominic's local Trading Standards Office produced the ideal solution. One pot with branding graphics for all five flavours and ingredients labels on the base. With this agreement in place we new exactly how the rest of the design would work.

As the pots would carry only generic graphics we saw an opportunity to minimise costs even further by designing the pot graphics in black and white, focussing all the colour onto the lid inserts. The 'myrtle' woodcut illustration was based on a 17th century printers sample and was designed to give the packs authenticity. Print maker Jonathon Eaves was chosen to create the lid insert illustrations. His blocky, textured style, give the illustrations a solid, vivid reality set against the pure milk white of the lids and pots.

Illustrations by print maker Jonathon Eaves.