British packaging manufacturers might be bending into the wind of globalisation, but as far as the world’s biggest brands are concerned it’s very much a case of London Calling when it comes to designing what’s most likely to succeed on the shelf.
According to the Design Council, there are more than 14,800 product and industrial design consultancies spread throughout the UK, of which a healthy proportion is based in London and directly engaged with the packaging industry.
Award-winning graphics and structural work is increasingly being sourced from Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and the rest. But our league table (see page 38) shows that London boasts the highest concentration of home-grown creativity, and, says Pearlfisher partner Mike Branson, is universally perceived to be a “real centre of excellence in relation to design”.
“At least two-thirds of our business takes us outside of the UK, and I’m sure we’re not alone in having that sort of profile,” he says. “Our mind-set is that we operate across a very international territory and can work as easily with a client in the UK as, say, South Africa.”
Unlike substrate-based packaging solutions, creativity is a highly portable and far less cost-constrained commodity. While agencies such as Pearlfisher have been adroit in exploiting that reality through their own devices, there is now evidence of government lending some proactive clout as well.
Design Bridge is among a number of UK consultancies invited to take part in an upcoming government-initiated China Taskforce exercise, promoting British product, corporate and brand design in China, targeting not just firms selling into the UK, but also within their own rapidly expanding local market...
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