Cadbury Christmas Range

Agency: Design Bridge
Project Type: Produced, Commercial Work
Client: Cadbury
Location: London, UK
Packaging Contents: Chocolate

Design Bridge bring festive craft and jollification to Cadbury Christmas range

Design Bridge today announce details of the new packaging designs they have created for this year’s Cadbury Christmas range. Featuring felt fabric details layered on top of knitted winter landscapes, the designs are used across 22 products, which include advent calendars and gift boxes, and bring a new sense of festive fun and Christmas crafting to the range.

Kate Galle, Creative Director from Design Bridge commented, “Cadbury have used a knitted pattern design on their Christmas range for a couple of years but it looked too artificial and computerised in its application to capture the genuine warmth and specialness we associate with this time of year. Using knit as our starting point, we have developed a much more considered design that celebrates authentic, home-made Christmas crafts and makes the packaging feel much more joyful. Every element of our design looks like it’s been embroidered and stitched onto the packaging, bringing a home-crafted feel to the range that makes people smile.”

Design Bridge used the term ‘Christmas jollification’ to guide their thinking around what makes a Cadbury Christmas particularly special and took inspiration from festive home-knitted jumpers and felted Christmas stockings.

Keen to get the crafted elements just right, Design Bridge experimented with different sizes of knit and felt stitching to ensure the right balance of textures was achieved on pack, and even went as far as hand-stitching a giant felt Santa Claus. The team then created a set of guidelines for how to construct the layered designs. The proportions of purple, red and white on pack were carefully calculated so that Cadbury stands out on the shelf while retaining its festive appeal.

Kate Galle explained, “Each design starts with a knitted backdrop, onto which felt elements, like our new Santa Claus, are ‘appliquéd’. The next layer is an embroidered Cadbury logo, and lastly an image of the chocolate itself. Felt elements only appear on the pack if absolutely needed, ensuring the designs never feel cluttered, twee or fussy. We wove little details into each felt addition, such as the embroidered Cadbury C-shaped buckle on Santa’s belt, and it’s these considered details that make the designs feel so special.”

As part of the project Design Bridge also researched the different ways Santa has been portrayed throughout the centuries and applied their ‘Christmas Jollification’ thinking to create a new Santa to appear across the Cadbury Christmas range.

Paige Winter, Senior Client Manager, commented, “Our new Santa is the true bringer of chocolate at Christmas and adds joy to the designs through his friendly and fun appearance. He has open, welcoming arms with lots of Cadbury chocolates in tow, and has rosy cheeks, a full curly beard and a jaunty flick in his moustache that suggests his playful sense of humour.”

Design Bridge took Santa’s sense of fun one step further in their designs for Cadbury’s new product, Jolly Santas. Here they created seven mini chocolate Santas that see him snowboarding, skiing, wearing sunglasses and baking a Christmas pudding. These playful and spontaneous designs build on the sense of delight the team have brought to the whole range and reflect the festive fun and cheer of a Cadbury Christmas.

Steve Chick, at Cadbury commented, “Design Bridge have truly succeeded in bringing an infectious feeling of jolliness and fun to the range that stays true to the warmth and joy we associate with Cadbury at Christmas time. We hope it will make others smile as much as it has us.”