cool packaging

One of my favorite things to do whenever I travel is to visit grocery stores and just stroll down the isles to see what catches my eye. I'm such a sucker for good packaging - I'll buy something based on that alone! So I thought I'd share some of my finds from our trip to Vancouver, BC.

The first thing I picked up was this locally made, gorgeous, and delicious chocolate bar. Love the color, of course (orange being one of my faves!), but what struck me was the clean, sleek look of the graphics, as well as the way the chocolate was packaged inside: it sits in a little tray that slides out of the sleeve.

The tray reads "Sleek, slender, easy to hide from your friends" and the chocolate itself has an irregular, angular pattern that is repeated on the front of the package. You can find some here.

Next was a bottle of olive oil from New Zealand that made me smile: what a clever way of playing with the letters! Plus I love green and black – it totally matches my colors of Defteling Design. You can find it here.

And how cool is this bottle of lemon juice from South Africa? I actually like the old-fashioned plastic lemon-shaped bottle, but this updated version is so stylish and modern, I have to replace my old one!

I also spotted lime juice and a caramel and chocolate sauce in similar packaging – yumm to both the packaging and the contents! Find more here.

The artist in me just had to have this strawberry jam:

The box is what caught my attention but when I opened it up and saw that the jam came in a tube with awesome graphics, I was completely sold!

And last but not least, when I spotted these Pantone mugs in a very cool design store, I had to have it. It's not quite "my" PMS color (that's 612, in case you're wondering) but it was close enough – I'm already using it as a pencil cup, given that I don't drink coffee.

And of course, I couldn't leave without a few matching mechanical pencils:

I got these at a fabulous store called Vancouver Special but you can also find them here.