Brand design system delivers a powerful single voice that enables growth

Overview

SimplyThick is a food and beverage thickener designed specifically for the nearly 6 million people who have difficulties swallowing — the elderly and individuals who suffer from stroke or other physical or neurological conditions. SimplyThick provides consumers with a product that makes beverages look and taste like they should without the starchiness, graininess or aftertaste of other beverage thickeners on the market.

When SimplyThick launched, the company needed a brand design and system that would both successfully attract consumers and grow along with the company — communicating a cohesive single voice as more products and packages were added over time.

Insights

• SimplyThick needed to appeal primarily to speech therapists who would in turn recommend the product to their patients. Speech therapists are predominantly female, in their 20’s and 30’s.
• While the product was launching into a medical market, SimplyThick needed to be perceived as a nutritional product rather than as a medicine.
• Because the product would be available in different consistencies and in multiple serving size packages (single and bulk), a clear and smart design system would be valuable both in the near and long term.

Obstacles

• Little room for error — this was a start-up company.
• Clear directions for product use are important.
• Multiple product sizes and packaging types.
• Materials had to be available in multiple languages.
• Product design must comply with FDA standards.

Strategy

We developed a comprehensive visual scheme that’s decidedly bright and optimistic, which allowed the packaging to stand out in the medical market.

• Simple illustrations of a bee and a flower reinforced the product’s different consistencies and appealed to the primary audience of female speech therapists.
• Visual elements were extended to information sheets, showcasing the product benefits and providing product prep instructions.
• A friendly narrative was developed to help promote nutrition and lifestyle, rather than a product that felt prescribed.
• Developed a consistent system for entire product line to include information and instructions in English, French and Spanish. The system works on small white packets as well as large corrugated cardboard boxes.
• Designed a 65 page recipe book that shows how to use the product to create food that is easy to swallow, including easy to follow tabs and color coding.

Results

As SimplyThick has grown since its launch in 2001, we’ve designed packaging for every new product created, new multilingual literature for patients and medical professionals, tradeshow exhibits and more.