Creative Convos: Robot Food

Chris and Eve are both graduates of Leeds College of Art, from 2014.

Chris Shuttleworth
Chris did a placement at 'Big Fish' in London, 'The Chase' in Preston and in his final year at university, he did a placement at Robot Food and eventually, ended up with a full-time job there and has been at Robot Food for 4 years.

When he did his placement at Robot Food, it was a studio of 6, but now it has grown into a larger studio of 14 people.

Eve Warren
Eve did a placement at 'Field Work' in Manchester and a few other design studios in the North. She had been a freelance Graphic Designer up until last year when she found a job at Robot Food and is now working full-time as a designer. She has currently been at Robot Food for a year.

Robot Food
They mainly specialise in branding and packaging design.

Their brand strategy is to simplify and amplify. Before getting straight onto designing, they do a brand workshop where they first: identify and define the brands personality, find their competitors, look at trends and how their products/brand look against existing products/brands.

They have worked with clients such as Seabrook and The Co-Op.

Electric Ink
Simon, the founder and creative director of Robot Food is a fan of tattoos and tattoo designs. He wanted to create an tattoo aftercare range for people with tattoos to buy as in shops, tattoo aftercare products seemed to be too silver or more about the brand than the product itself.

They hired Tom Gilmore, a illustrator to create a playful pattern design for their packaging.

Electric Ink launched in Urban Outfitters in the US and in Topman. They are also looking towards creating a mailing/subscription service of their tattoo products for consumers. They use Instagram to engage with consumers and find brand ambassadors for their products.

Advice

• Add personality to brands to make it seem more playful and fun in their tone of voice
• Shout about the USP of each brand to draw out their unique characteristics that may make it stand out from its consumers
• Identify what the consumer is missing and create something unique to make it stand out
• Introduce and unexpected stand-out style.