Recently Dr. Pepper Snapple Group redesigned one of its flagship products, Squirt soda. We teamed up with client and collaborators at BevReview to bring you an analysis of the new package design.

Here’s an excerpt:

There are so many factors that influence the success of a beverage brand that have nothing to do with the actual flavor or taste of the drink. In some sense, the way a drink tastes is last in a long chain of events leading up to purchase and guzzling. Every step that leads up to the actual drink pouring down your throat is what brand designers call a “moment of brand engagement,” a singular opportunity for beverage makers to connect with you, the prospective audience/purchaser.

Check out the rest of the article at BevReview, and let them (and us) know what you think.

When they say it’s big, they’re not kidding! We just received our copy of Harper Design’s Big Book of Packaging and it’s chock full of great package designs. We’re happy to be in such good company, as we have several entries in the volume as well, including work for Jim Beam, The Art of Spice, Omaha Steaks, and a few others. The solid design of the book keeps all the inspiring work front and center. Highly recommended!

Update: The Damn Good call for entries deadline has been extended to Monday, February 28th, 2011. More info here.

We are super excited to announce the official call for entries to our upcoming book, Damn Good: Top Designers Discuss Their All-Time Favorite Projects. Hexanine has partnered with HOW Design Books and Crescent Hill Books to deliver this design inspiration book, our very first!

In thinking about what separates great design from the crowd, we recognized that passion drives the best design work, and this book will provide an opportunity for designers to explain, discuss, and brag about the work that represents their favorite projects. Any work you’ve done, in brand identity, packaging, print, interactive, or another category is fair game. Submissions aren’t limited by their launch date — your projects could have been developed last month, last year, or whenever.

Also, we’re doing something rather unique in this space — one chapter will feature ‘axed projects’ — great work that you loved, but the client rejected. Whether it was recession budgets, conservative clients, or office politics that shelved your project, now is your chance to show it to the world. Axed projects will be featured in our “Cutting Room Floor” chapter so they can live again.

There’s no cost to enter (just a $25 publication fee for chosen entries) and all submissions will be judged by us, the Hexanine partners, Tim Lapetino and Jason Adam. We’ll select more than 100 projects, and 12 will be chosen for case studies, devoting two pages and an interview to your specific design entry. Damn Good will also be distributed internationally and sold in more than 20 countries. You can get more details about the book itself from our PDF info sheet.

So, create an account at Crescent Hill’s online submission site and submit your work! The deadline for entries is February 14, 2011.

We’ll have more information as we move closer to the book’s Winter 2011 launch, including some exclusive sneak peeks. We’ll also give some insight into the design process, and what it takes to judge a book like this. Stay tuned, and stay Damn Good!

Edits: The number of case studies has been changed to 12, and the book’s title is now “Damn Good: Top Designers Discuss Their All-Time Favorite Projects“.

One of the great things about design is its ability to act as a window in time, for us to get a taste of what that era was like. If we’re old enough, those combinations of words and images conjure up powerful memories, associations and emotions. Great design does that.

And even if we weren’t around the first time, these designs give us some sense of what that world was like — the fashions, the typefaces of choice, trendy color palettes, the lingo and candor of the day. So, for your pleasure, I’d like to present more packaging examples of an era that has gone by, a decade of hi-fi cassettes, arcades, and the first generation of video games.

[Note: All these game box images were shot at Hexanine, and come from the nerdy collection of Tim.]