Quality Street Essay

In my study I would like to talk about Nestlé’s (Mackintosh’s) product Quality Street, its history since creation till nowadays and how it evolved during the years. I would like to start with a bit of history, when it all started.
Quality Street is a magical brand and has held a special place in the hearts of the public in Britain and around the world, since it was launched in 1936 by Halifax confectioner Mackintosh’s. Quality Street was named by JM Barrie (of Peter Pan fame) play and the two figures on the box were originally inspired by the two principal characters Phoebe Throssel and Valentine Brown. In 1936 Quality street costs two shillings (10p), equivalent to £3.69 in today money. Today Quality Street are often associated with the Christmas period in Britain, Ireland and are bought as gifts throughout the season.
Last week I visited Halifax Bankfield Museum to find out more about this product’s history and to dive into atmosphere of the past centuries, how design looked like before and to compare that with today’s Quality Street design. I received a lot of evidence for my study. Bankfield Museum’s packaging specialist Jeff Wilkinson took me through the history of Quality Street. He showed me packaging designs dating from 1901 year- even before the brand was launched. In 1901 – the name of the sweets was ‘Mackintoch’s Toffee Deluxe’. Also I received a lot of evidence how people used to advertise their products. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take any packaging examples with me, but I managed to take a lot of pictures. Looking in the past – is very exciting process, because you can see how people used to live before, what their lifestyle was and to compare that with nowadays, how our lifestyle together with design changed during the years. During my visit to museum Jeff Wilkinson also showed me the first ever advert of Quality Street, published in Daily Mail on Thursday, February 25, 1937. It was published almost 73 years ago, but that piece of news paper looked like it is only few years old. Also I managed took take a picture of first ever advert published by Mackintoch’s. I think, it was in 1901 year. People must have been forgotten about things like this. They just buy products from stores, but the history, where and how it all started was left behind. I spent there two hours, but It was like fifteen minutes, because I felt like I was taken 70 years back in past. It was such an interesting journey.
Nestle is a big factory today. They have many different departments for producing sweets, but hundred years ago there was just one department called Mackintosh. I work in Nestle and I had an opportunity before to walk in that department to have a look at all machines, production lines, where sweets have been made in 1937th. All was left like somebody worked there few weeks ago, but in real machines have been stopped for many years. Today this part of the factory is closed and employees have no access to Mackintoch’s site. During my research I tried to get access to get some more evidence for my research, but even managers have cannot get in there.
I was told that Nestle thinking to sell that department to other company, that’s why it locked. I spoke with an employee, whose father used to work for Mackintosh’s. She told me, when her father was about 18 years old – he started work in Mackintosh’s factory. She told me, how difficult was to work in that time without technology, because they used to packing, sealing products manually. There were a lot of people who had their own responsibility. Today, with appearance of technology- the old way of producing and packing sweets is not good enough. It is just too slow. That’s why Nestle have a huge factory now, where located all technology. Every department makes different sort of sweets.
If to compare today’s packaging with 20’s, 30’s 40’s, 50’s- you will be able to find a lot of differences. First of all the difference is in graphics. With appearance of technology packaging became more realistic, because now we are able to use photographs, prints, scans for our designs. To apply different fonts, shadows using the variety of software. But before people used draw all designs by hand, which they used for the projects then. It was much harder to do it manually. During my visit to Bankfield Museum I took a lot of pictures of drawings, which designers created and used for Quality Street tins. It was like a cartoon, a lot of characters applied on the tin. For example, a pair of hussars walking and laughing, on the background carriage going pass , another hussar gives sweets to the children. A lot of actions go on the tin of sweets. I think this design was much better to compare with what we have today. People would buy it due to such design only, because illustrations were colourful passing through Christmas atmosphere and celebration mood. It was a good present at any time of the year. Unfortunately, not all of the drawings were used for Quality Street designs, and were left as drawings on the paper only. So I think, Quality Street packaging design was very moody. It was like a cartoon-story applied on the tin, well drawn characters and interesting design. Nowadays design look much simple. Not a lot going on the tin. They use mainly one colour for the carton design, no characters; they replaced characters with sweets. I think, this design is more reflecting our century, when most of the work made with the help of software. Personally, I like the old packaging design of Quality Street, because it’s reflecting people life and happiness.
Also I visited Designing Company in Bradford ‘Chesapeake’, where they make packaging for ‘Quality Street’. Today we have a good opportunity to make our design work simple and fast. Designer Leigh Armstrong showed me the process from beginning, when they come up with idea of packaging design, till design completed and shown to the client. I was impressed, because all they have to do is to create design and to apply it on the carton using Illustrator or Photoshop. All other work completed by machines. They have special machines for cutting and sealing packaging. It could take a lot of time if to do it manually.
From my research I found out that Quality Street packaging design had a lot of stages, but every design responds to people lifestyle in that century. The latest Quality Street packaging design made is more professional, but still I prefer the old style, because there is life on the tin, movements, traditions, celebrations, what gives you good mood and desire to buy it.
My design responds to our century. I tried to produce something new, what still is not on the shelf. My Quality Street tin opens in very unusual way, what could make people interested in this product and to choose it from others, which located on the same shelf on the market. I went through the long way to create my packaging design. The most difficult was to make the actual prototype without help of technology, which designers use in their workplace. It takes a lot of time and tests, before producing complete piece of design.