Quatre Mains
When four hands come together, their sum breaks down all barriers. Grown from a love affair for Packaging Design and each other, the harmonious duet of Els and Patrick gave birth to Quatre Mains. This spirit of collaboration formed a passionate, award winning agency situated in the quaint Belgian countryside who’s desire to welcome, nurture and enjoy all creative challenges, beats at the heart of why we all get up in the morning. With a big helping hand we look to mold and knead creativity into impactful solutions and visions for our clients and partners.
Brand & Packaging Design is a relentless pursuit of uniqueness and excellence which aspires to bring real meaning to the lives of consumers whilst operating in a retail world that is forever twisting and turning. If it’s for brand owners, producers, distributors or private labels, we embrace what we love for those we love the most. Be it a local, artisanal goats cheese, or a family of historical abbey beers, a range of professional hair care products, or complete portfolio identity for an organic food provider or mineral water brand. Whatever the challenge, big or small, we give it our all. Combining an intuitive gut with an inquisitive mind, we love to be engaged in all aspects of the lives of our brands, from upstream strategic storytelling or brand inception to downstream identity roll-out and printed perfection. Being an ‘all the way’, loving bed fellow to our brands sounds kind of kinky but without that curiosity and commitment we could never deliver that standard of understanding and influence that this hands-on approach promises.
This drive and creative courage is shared throughout our eclectic team of like-minded QM’ers. A bunch of ready-to-rumble packaging obsessed brand designers, tucked away in a train station and cozy little hotel in the middle of nowhere but with our collective fingers continuously on the pulse of this worldwide business we love.
| Contact: | Patrick De Grande |
| Address: | Kronekalseide, 278, 9990 Maldegem-Donk, Belgium |
| Phone: | +32 (50) 406300 |
| Email: | Patrick@quatremains.be |
| Website: | www.quatremains.be |
A mysterious Genever range
The Braeckman family has for approximately 100 years been one of Belgium’s finest genever distillers. Based on only the purest raw material, this juniper berry, grain spirit has formed a fundamental part of traditional Belgian and Dutch beverage culture for generations. After countless years of quality and success, the Belgian genever category was in decline, often overshadowed by the ever growing gin and vodka trends. Realizing fundamental change was needed, the Braeckman family briefed us to totally rejuvenate and invigorate their classics genever range and to leave the old fashioned dusty image far behind.
After immersing ourselves in the respected Braeckman heritage we decided to tell a romantic legendary story with each product, each inspired by mythical tales of intrigue and origin. From the family patriarch figure of ‘Old Braeckman’ where it all began to the dark and curious ‘Hen Thief’ who’s midnight movements are a mystery to all. ‘The Blue Pigeon’ is a prime example of how fable meets fact, this eccentric bird who selects only the finest juniper berries for this unique blend. These thick quill ink sketches on parchment labels are accompanied by inspiring cocktail recipes and quirky quotes, designed to attract the hip and trendy to our rich and mysterious genever range.
Niamh Authentic World Bakery
Aveve is a well-known Belgian brand for garden, animal and baking supplies. A few years ago, we redesigned the entire all-in-baking mixes of the Aveve brand. Always in search of innovation Aveve asked us to create a brand and packaging design for a new ethnic range of ready to bake mixes named Niamh. Aveve’s brief for us, was to primarily create a baking concept that tells a story of origin and authenticity. They wanted a home-baking, innovative, qualitative look and feel.
Our idea was to present Niamh as an authentic world bakery. As every nation has its cultural traditions and personality, Niamh provided the platform that celebrated those unique bakers and their characters. Sharing the same purpose around the world and honouring their ethnic & traditional baking recipes. As we travel we experience an eclectic range of diverse flavours & scents, creating memories and enticing the taste buds wherever we go. Niamh brings the world we experience elsewhere, back home.
For each pack we personalized the product origins through an illustration of a local Italian, Indian, Russian,…baker. A quirky character that proudly presents their country’s authentic specialty. As home baking is fun, so is our approach to the ethnic aspect of this packaging. Bring those world flavours back home and try out some Indian Naan, Italian Focaccia, Russian Blini’s or Turkish Pide.
Because after all, homemade food is twice as good! For more inspiration visit https://niamhbaking.com
Happiness is Your Baby’s Smile
Our client Kindoh was a well-established player on the local South Korean diaper category who had great ambitions to innovate through extended product ranges and into the world market. Exclusively available online, the Kindoh diapers had become a hit with Korean young mothers, charmed by this brands social media presence and impressed by their honesty and premium quality product at affordable prices. This socially responsible approach and loyalty to young mothers proved a huge success, prompting our client to push the brand to the next level.
The client’s ambitious expansion plans required a total relook at the Kindoh branding and packaging identity. After developing the ‘Happiness is your baby’s smile’ baseline we decided to enthuse the entire brand with this positive mantra, bringing quite literally, sunshine and smiles wherever we go. ‘Kind’ indeed refers to the child at the heart of every story, with the smiling ‘Oh’ referring to the WOW the brand brings to the lives of babies and young mothers. The two reds are employed to help show this balance and help people pronounce the brand name.
For the client’s extensive diaper product range and newly developed wet wipes, we created a Kindoh wonderland, where young babies can roam and explore, interacting playfully with cute and loving characters that populate each pack and provide an ownable visual language with the potential to stretch to all touch points. Using clear product colour coding combined with the consistent Kindoh red/soft blue colour palette and purposeful photography chosen to reflect each key step in a baby’s development, our identity looked to both guide and entertain consumers down to the smallest detail. This visual language was further translated to the diaper patterns themselves and can even be seen across other merchandising, home delivery boxes and the Kindoh Mall online retail platform.
A bouncing bundle of design joy to fall in love with.
Chocolates from heaven
Klingele Chocolade is a family owned business situated in the beautiful city of Ghent. They’re a leading producer and supplier of healthy and honest chocolates made with respect for people and nature. They are passionate about quality and selecting the right ingredients to bring you only the best. Their organic Belgian chocolates are made with no added sugar because they believe that it’s not the sugar that makes the chocolate delightful, but the ingredients. It’s in nature where they find their inspiration to deliver you the most delightfully wholesome chocolates.
Our brief was to redesign their existing Green Dream – Chocolates range with a focus on the pleasure of treating yourself, guilt free. We turned their former baseline into a real brand name and utilised ‘Chocolates from Heaven’ to transport us to a world of pleasure. The dreamy surreal illustrations create an imaginary world that allow us to dream of ‘heavenly’ flavours. Every detail is designed to bring a smile to your face, inspired by our world famous Belgian surrealistic painters like Magritte. The tactile wrapper and hot-foil finishes enhance the feeling of craftsmanship, honest ingredients and premium quality. Our messenger dove brand mascot and stamp like label, convey a delicious chocolate message, sent straight from heaven. We don’t know about you, but we’ve definitely got our heads in the clouds.
Marsel, nature’s best sea salt
Zoutman is an independent Belgian family firm, specialised in producing and processing (sea) salt. For a specific retail range ‘Marsel’, containing nature’s best sea salt, they asked Quatre Mains for a new straightforward design. First, we refined the Marsel brand, creating a modern logotype and allowing the fisherman’s boat the space it needs. By placing the boat on top and adding a brand communication baseline, we created an immediate link to the salts origin. A playful, marine stripe design shows us the difference between the salt types. A grungy white wooden look reflects the experienced craftsmanship Zoutman has displayed for many years. A simple design whose strength is in showing only what is truly necessary. Less is more.
