Albertson's Essensia – Anthem Worldwide

For Albertson’s Grocery, Anthem Worldwide envisioned a striking introduction to the grocer’s own extensive line of premium foods. Within stores the consumer would be presented with a wall of Essensia Frozen Entrees—the anchor category within the new brand—and a clean, silver-toned design framing vibrant product photography. 

Visual harmony was key, and for the frozen food category especially there would be little variation in the design—architecture and typography would be unified from sku to sku. What was crucial was the branding, which the designers had skillfully brought front and center. The line depended on a rigorous and foolproof set of rules—a blueprint for creating the packaging from the ground up without needless design massaging and cost-hemorrhaging back and forth within the studio. As a technical designer with these goals in mind, I was handed the concepts and given ownership of the brand, and I set out to create the rules for Essensia.

The result: each early mechanical met with approval from the design staff and the revision step was quickly dropped from the process—replaced by a comprehensive style-guide that looked toward situations as yet untested. While the creative intentions were intact, the work now revolved around a brand system. Guesswork and individual “interpretation” had been eliminated, and the Essensia brand faced consumers with succinct elegance.