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P&W wins 2 Design Excellence Awards

We are excited to announce that we’ve just won 2 Design Excellence Awards for our Tesco Spanish Juice and our Fresh & Easy Italian sodas.

 “The PLBuyer Design Excellence Awards is an exciting awards program developed by PLBuyer – the #1 media brand serving the private label industry – aimed to recognize the very best in private label package design. The PLBuyer Design Excellence Awards was judged by a distinguished panel of package design professionals.” PLBuyer

We were also finalists for the following projects with our work on display at the PLMA trade show in Chicago:

Fresh & Easy Plastics Range

Fresh & Easy Kitchen TO GO Range

                Tesco Spanish Orange Juice                                                       Fresh & Easy Italian Soda

Photography 101

Over the summer Heather and I (Danielle) took a photography class at the Manhattan Beach Art Department to refresh our skills. We went once a week for 8 weeks and learned some valuable lessons from our teacher Brian, who happens to be a very experienced and famous toy photographer. 

The casual environment made it a relaxed and comfortable learning experience, which we loved! Over 8 weeks, with our digital cameras set to manual, we learned how to:

1. Explore depth of field using aperture/f-stop (shallow vs. deep)

2. Use shutter speed to control light and introduce blur 

3. Adjust ISO settings

4. Read and measure light

5. Shoot with strobe and flash

6. Determine color/white balance (shooting in artificial light, daylight, tungsten, etc.)

Meet our teacher, Brian. See his work here

Shallow Depth of Field Exercise - Inside Classroom vs. Outside

Practicing the "panning technique" - We chased each other around the classroom
for about 30 minutes! 

Over Exposed Heather vs. Under Exposed Heather - I adjusted my strobe settings 

to get the perfect exposure.

Experimenting with Studio Lights

P&Wig Day

Things got a little spooky today in our Los Angeles studio. Halloween is such a big holiday here in the US - costumes aren't just for kids! So we thought we'd give our UK studio a good scare by wearing ridiculous wigs during the morning Skype call. Pretty terrifying right?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM TEAM P&W

A-Z | Hobby on a Film Set

The late Oscar winning actor Yul Brynner is better known for his roles in movies such as The King & I (1956) and The Magnificent Seven (1960).  However, an exhibition at The Little Black Gallery, London highlighted a little known talent for photography which Brynner honed during long idle periods on film sets.

His candid, personal shots of some of Hollywood's brightest stars reveal subjects relaxed and at ease in his company, happy for him to view them through his trusty Leica.

Brynner amassed more than 8000 photos before he died in 1985,  from which his daughter Victoria selected and curated the show.

 

Audrey Hepburn was a close personal friend of
Brynner's, this shot was taken in Venice, 1965Robert Mitchum takes a break from playing a mercenary on the set of Villa Rides. 1956 

The enigmatic Frank Sinatra emerges from a helicopter, tumbler of whisky in hand. 1964 

Ingrid Bergman shows her playful side while filming Goodbye Again 1961 Sophia Loren in a moment of concentration, House Boat 1957 

Elizabeth Taylor plays with her daughter Liza Todd Burton at her Hollywood home 1959 

Grace Kelly in 1966 

These unique portraits are an enticing glimpse of life behind the celebrity facade, from a time when celebrity still retained a certain mystique.

photos-  http://www.thelittleblackgallery.com/shows/yul-brynner-a-photographic-journey

P&W wins Silver Pentaward

We are excited to announce that we’ve just won a Silver Pentaward for our Tesco Spanish Orange Juice range.

 “A prestigious awards program dedicated exclusively to Packaging Design, judged and awarded by an international panel composed of 12 packaging design professionals” 

The goal was to create a design solution that stood out amongst other ordinary orange juice, an eye catching and unique solution for this specialty juice. Orange juice is a crowded category, complex and difficult to shop, for a specialty juice to thrive it needs to be identifiable on shelf.

The design reflects the origin of the oranges whilst keeping it light hearted and distinctive from the array of other orange juices in the fixture – the idea of the Matador was used to create an iconic symbol - integrating the photographic orange within the illustrations for a sense of fun and still differentiating between the smooth and with bits orange juice varieties. It also had to have the ability to communicate strongly within the juice category, which is all about refreshment and flavor.

"We think the highly creative solution is eye catching and distinctive, the design wraps around the pack truly bringing the character to life “ –P&W

A-Z | Creative Exercise 01 Self Portraits

With offices in London and LA, our studio relies on a solid creative process to keep us connected as one big happy design family. We decided to strengthen that process with little "exercises". Using pens, paper, film, books, tasty food, music, whatever we can get our hands on. 

The first exercise was so ridiculous and funny, we had to share the results. So here it is, the very first of an on-going series of P&W challenges, designed to keep our creativity flowing!