Premium dog brands are finally getting the same visual treatment as human food, and Ryoken Instinct, designed by Planet People Studio, is a recent example of the shift.
The packaging uses geometric illustrations for each protein’s animal icon, a pig, a cow, a lamb, a fish, a rabbit, an alligator, in clean, angular facets that feel modern, perfectly matching a brand built around instinctual, whole-food nutrition for active dogs. The Ryoken Instinct wordmark and wolf icon at the top of each pack carry a streetwear-inspired quality, with the geometric wolf mark sitting inside a shield shape that references the kind of brand badge you would see on premium outdoor or performance gear. What makes this design interesting is how many consumers are treating their pets as family; this packaging design represents that shift fully, through an ingredient-forward, intentional design system.
Hey Jury friends! Take a moment—stretch, sip your coffee, pet a nearby dog if available. You’re about to dive into a project fueled by science, local farms, and extremely good boys.
Ryoken came to us with a quality product and a dream to take their brand to the next level. They had been at is for a few years and were hitting a wall with their initial self-made packs. They needed to refresh, rethink, and revamp the packaging and identity elements so they could roll out new products and elevate to the shelves.
The sticking points from the strategy were that they were science-driven and very transparent about their ingredients and they were going to continue pumping new products out of the R&D lab in the coming years.
We took the approach of adapting their existing elements, making them more approachable and scalable. Whole dog logo became dog head logo, complicated geometric, science, origami inspired illustrations became simpler, colors got punched up, and typography got bolder.
The big story here is the packaging. The pet food/treat packaging world is unique and we wanted to lean into a design system that was simple, but still packed with personality.
The first thing we knew we needed – ingredients on the front. They take their ethically sourced, regenerative local farm fresh ingredients seriously. So, we figured they should tell everyone.
The desire to have a transparent window to see the product was an element they were really passionate about. They even still managed a way to find someone who could make it happen with PCR plastic, so it’s a bit opaque, but hey better than virgin plastic. The window not only shows off the unique shape of the product but also supports their quest for transparency.
The little illustrations of the animals serve as a quick identifier of the primary protein ingredient and stylistically support their science first, origami inspired logo treatment. It also has the benefit of being a pretty unique and own-able style.
Their nutrition-forward audience is looking for health and ingredient quality RTB’s first and foremost when shopping the shelves so we made sure to add little badge lockups under the flavor and some high-level callouts that get torn away at the top.
Colors were a fun part of the process. We wanted to make a 2 color approach work to really inject some fun, but ultimately we landed on a more monochromatic approach to future-proof. But we wanted shelf-stand out packs so we got some saturation levels up in there.
The final detail was the choice to flip the product name on it’s side. It serves as a fun way to break up the monotony of right side up type, but its also a really nice balance for the left-align heavy layout.
The system has been working so well for them that they’ve even created a few small bite sizes packs on their own. And they crushed it. We take that as a big compliment for the adaptability of the design.
