Entrepreneur and publisher Henerietta Morrison came to Albion with a new idea. Dog Food. But not any old dog food. Dog food that is actually made from good cuts of meat and nice healthy veggies for your dog. All stuff that makes them smell better and live longer. No more slurry, ash or bits of carcass.

I reasoned a couple of things:

1. Your dog is part of the family so why would you feed them bits of hoof.

2. This stuff was proper dog food. The way it should be.

So after developing the strategy of “Proper Dog Food”. We used Henrietta’s own dog, Lily, as the starting point (after all she is the inspiration for the product in the first place). I then worked with Natalie Ranger and Joe Holt to create a new dog food brand for her.

Lily’s Kitchen: Proper Dog Food. Just tells people what it is, straight, simple and down to earth, with a hint of premium quality. It has a confidence that others can’t contend with. Once that was in place Joe and I created the branding and art directed the packaging. With Joe designing all the nice little elements, making sure it all hung together and was easy to see on the shelf.

We wanted it to feel modern but have a timelessness to it. Something that says: “The food in this tin is quality” without resorting to pictures of the food or the usual big dog face.

After visiting an exhibition of hers we then asked illustrator Petra Borner to take our concept and produce a lovely illustration for it (as she has a nice down to earth wood cut style). Which she did. We then coloured each flavour, using certain colours to stand for certain foods, developed a logo and some organic icons for it.

We created a little country to the city story on the packaging and made sure it was not like any other dog food on the shelf. The Joe developed the illustration so it ran continuously around the tin. It was then printed in water-based inks on lovely recycled stock.

It was a fun project and I think we ended up with something category breaking. It’s now being sold in over 20 outlets, and sold over 70,000 units in the first 7 weeks. We’re now just holding out for being able to create a website aimed directly at dogs next!

Lily’s Kitchen made it into the D&AD annual 2009. I’m so proud. Sniff. Go on girl.