Performance Kitchen

Performance Kitchen is food for active life. It’s the meal that’s ready for you in 5 minutes when you don’t have an appetite for yet another beige protein shake. Whether you’re climbing stairs or mountains, each meal packs the protein, veggies and healthy fats you need. It’s functional meals you actually want to eat.

The client sought a brand that would disrupt a frozen aisle which was battling its way out of half of century of stigma.

I was deeply involved with the brand's inception, working with the managing team and investors to shape something that would connect with active minded busy professionals.

Adidas approached convenience nutrition meal leader Luvo with a challenge: can you develop a product that reflects our values as well as yours?

We had an amazing once in a lifetime opportunity to define something completely new for a global brand renowned for athletic performance.

The project was to introduce visitors to the world’s largest yoga festival to adidas’ energy bites. With Luvo’s significant expertise in proven nutrition, and adidas’ dedication to performance in mind, I created the Food Lab launch concept. Food Lab allowed us to create a test space for consumers to sample products and give feedback through digital and analog means. The brand needed to bridge the Luvo and adidas identities in a way that made sense, so I came up with a look and feel that reflected those values and seamlessly integrated with the adidas retail experience.

PACKAGING AS HERO

The opportunity for Performance Kitchen was driven by key shelf space that the client won at Target. The retailer is well known for being highly selective about their brands, so the need to carve out a unique space was paramount.

PACKAGING AS HERO

The opportunity for Performance Kitchen was driven by key shelf space that the client won at Target. The retailer is well known for being highly selective about their brands, so the need to carve out a unique space was paramount.

PACKAGING AS HERO

The opportunity for Performance Kitchen was driven by key shelf space that the client won at Target. The retailer is well known for being highly selective about their brands, so the need to carve out a unique space was paramount.

To address the timeframe around this opportunity, and to design around a key consumer experience, I began creative work on packaging rather than the mark. Packaging is notoriously time consuming to develop. To address this I built a very tight, agile and user experience influenced workflow. The design team generated hundreds of front-panel concepts over the course of a month, at each round testing them with UX tools like 5 Second Test for immediate feedback. Once we established a pattern around which elements were successful, we continued testing a shortlist of packaging options against competitors.

Since we were so focused on front panel, I next leveraged 3D rendering to help manage the flow of the design around the other panels on the box.

To keep the commitment to ingredient transparency, we over-sized the prepared meal and were clear about the contents up front. A jewel toned palette inspired by flash frozen produce differentiated each flavor. We leaned towards a functional look to appeal to an audience that skewed male.

Layering organic textures, we created a 360 degree wrap effect, using layers of ripped paper. The paper itself is inspired by that feeling of tearing into a burrito when you’re super hungry. The paper tear device itself is a fundamental brand element that is echoed throughout brand touchpoints, to create layers and divisions.

PACKAGING RESULT

The initial Performance Kitchen line launched as a 24-piece, jewel toned set of boxed meals.

ACTIVATION

The Lab was concieved as a popup within the Adidas space at Wanderlust, the world's largest yoga fest.

Creative Direction and packaging design for Performance Kitchen

The paper rip element is inspired by that feeling of tearing into a burrito when you’re super hungry.

I wanted people to understand a food product the same way they did a pair of shoes — as something that enables performance (and brings joy.)

PACKAGING FAMILY

While we focused on the front panel of the marquee boxed product, there was a future plan to expand the line into different eating occassions and formats.

With this in mind, I reserved a few textural elements to use on other form factors, to avoid too uniform of a family presentation. The burrito format is based on a kraft-paper texture that brings you even closer to the street-burrito-eating experience.

We keep family resemblence with the use of the jeweled tones and the two main areas of information.

After considered research, we crafted the product names to evoke culinary depth, to strike a balance between the functionality of the nutritional readouts on the right side of pack.

THE MARK

While the packaging iterations were ongoing, we refined the mark so that it would be ready at the same time as packaging needed to be produced.

AT HOME IN PERFORMANCE

I wanted the mark to live as comfortably within the performance apparel space as it would within a functional food space.

We juxtaposed mark proposals against recognizable global brands of shoe, equipment, and apparel companies, as well as energy bar, and drink brands.

Secondly I wanted a neutral palette, also inspired by apparel companies, to form the basis of color. Jewel tones are used to flesh out the identity — more as indicators of motion, or drivers to specific ingredients and flavors.