@ The Dieline Conference: Put Your Money Where Your Mouse Is

Kevin Shaw, Founder and Creative Director of Stranger & Stranger, argues that designers are treated very differently and given much more freedom if they are proactive and put their own creative balls on the line. The work of packaging creatives is directly measured against sales successes. Having mastered the very dark art of persuading people to part with good money for products they haven’t tried, in a crowded market, in a recession, packaging designers are in a unique position to create a new model for their businesses. Using actual client presentations he will show you how designers can elevate themselves from “temperamental creative types” to trusted business partners and explains how it helps to sell in better creative work—and why people don’t ask him to change fonts anymore.

Kevin Shaw served time in advertising, publishing, corporate and even digital design but discovered the power of FMCG packaging while working on Coca-Cola. Bored to tears after winning the Dell account in the early nineties, Kevin began to design wine labels as a hobby in exchange for bordeaux wine and so Stranger & Stranger was born. Their labels now appear on over a billion beers, wines and spirits every year. Kevin is an advocate for innovation and now advises all sizes of brands from one-man startups to giants like Jack Daniels and Safeway.