Media Contact: Heather West, (612) 724-8760, heatherwest@earthlink.net

Compass Design Helps Bongards' Creameries Update Its Logo and Packaging

Minneapolis (December 14, 2001)-After three decades of using the same logo design, color and tagline, Bongards' Creameries gave Minneapolis-based Compass Design a call and said they were ready for a fresh look and updated packaging.

The creamery-located in the small town of Bongard, Minn.-manufactures cheese, butter and whey products. Although Bongards' had strong name and brand recognition in the food-service market, they wanted to increase brand awareness with consumers, particularly with their premium cheeses in grocery store deli cases.

While Bongards' was open to a complete packaging redesign, they did require that Compass' final design work with their current color coding system. "Many dairies and creameries use a color system to help consumers identify cheese flavors across all types of cheeses," explains Mitch Lindgren, Compass partner/designer. "Although the colors used by Bongards' colors were pretty basic-red, purple, blue and so on-we needed to make sure that the colors we chose for their logo complemented the colors used in the coding system."

One of Compass' initial thoughts was to avoid the stereotypical 'dairy' images in their design. "We felt that those images had already been overused in the industry, and our research confirmed it: we found a proliferation of farms, cows and silos already in the marketplace," says Lindgren. Armed with knowledge of what they wanted to avoid, the Compass team set out to make sure their designs met Bongards' objectives of brand consistency and shelf impact.

"Since consumers like to see the actual cheese they are purchasing, size was an important factor in our initial concepts," says Julia Hemphill, Compass Design partner/sales. "We were working with a label as opposed to a full package. And because the package size varies due to weight, the label size often changes as well. All of this meant we needed to create a design that could work on labels of various sizes and be applied via several types of printing."

Because size was such an important factor, the Compass team decided to forgo using an image and instead turned their attention to creating an eye-catching logo. Lindgren elaborates, "We began by taking an existing font and hand-rendering it to make it unique to Bongards. The look was traditional, which fit with Bongards' 93 year history. It also was crisp, clean, and easy to read, and maintained its crispness throughout multiple size variations." Lindgren and team added the word "creameries" in lower case letters and encased it in a simple banner. Bongards' impressive history was addressed with the tagline "Quality Since 1908."

With the logotype in place, Compass turned its attention to the logo colors.

After experimenting with multiple color combinations, the Compass team ultimately chose a cream color block overlaid on a black rectangle. Compass Partner/Designer Tom Arthur explains: "The contrast between the cream and black really made the labels pop and gave the packaging the shelf impact we were looking for. They also complemented the rust and green colors used in the logo and worked well with the variety of colors used in Bongards' coding system."

Bongards' Sales Manager Stu Kringen agrees: "After 30 years of using the same logo, we were ready for a change. This is exactly the type of fresh, updated look we were looking for-Compass did an outstanding job." Kringen said that the new logo and packaging was so well received, Bongards' has incorporated the logo onto its letterhead, sales and tradeshow materials and its Web site.

Bongards' premium cheeses are available now at selected grocery store deli counters nationwide.

Compass Design is a dynamic, Minneapolis-based design office specializing in comprehensive identity and consumer packaging programs for established and growing companies. With its experienced and knowledgeable staff, Compass Design strives for integrity and accuracy in its cost-effective, award-winning strategic design solutions. For more information on Compass Design, please contact Julia Hemphill at (612) 339-1595 or visit Compass Design's Web site at www.compassdesigninc.com.