Case Study · Creative Direction · Brand Identity · Packaging
Sanafort AG — Creative Direction, Brand Identity & Packaging
A four-year creative direction engagement for a Swiss health and wellness company, covering brand identity, packaging, production artwork, catalogs, information design, campaigns, digital communication and multilingual illustrated film.
Client: Sanafort AG, Switzerland · Period: 2014–2018
Role: Creative Director · Brand Identity & Packaging Designer · Illustrator · Visual Systems Designer · Motion Graphics Designer
Overview
One visual system for a whole company
From 2014 to 2018, I worked as Creative Director for Sanafort AG, a Swiss health and wellness company developing nutritional supplements and vitamin and mineral products and selling Hawlik health products in Switzerland.
The role covered nearly every point at which the company presented itself: identity, packaging, catalogs, product literature, campaigns, mailings, newsletters, responsive web design, product presentation imagery and illustrated motion graphics.
I worked remotely in direct contact with the CEO, product managers, medical advisors, printers and production partners. The task was not to make a collection of unrelated graphics, but to keep one visual language working across products, formats and changing information.
Project scope
- Brand identity and logo system
- Packaging architecture and production artwork
- Catalogs, flyers and product information
- Campaigns and customer communication
- Responsive corporate website
- Product presentation imagery
- Six illustrated explainer films for Mycotrition, connected to Hawlik product communication
01 · Brand Identity
A recognizable identity built to work at many scales
The Sanafort identity combined a serif wordmark, a stylized ginkgo emblem and the line Für Ihre Gesundheit. It had to remain legible and recognizable on everything from small folding cartons to catalog covers, direct mail and digital communication.
02 · Packaging System
One packaging family, one color per product
The vitamin and mineral range became the most visible expression of the identity. The structure remained consistent across the family, while controlled product colors made individual SKUs easy to distinguish.
The packaging also had to carry quantities, active ingredients, nutritional values, dosage guidance and legal copy. The visual front and the dense information panels therefore had to be designed as one object rather than treated separately.
03 · Production Artwork
The work behind the front panel
Packaging design continued through dielines, cut and fold structures, tabs, panel rotations, information zones and print-ready files. Several Sanafort products required complete folding-box production artwork rather than presentation-only mockups.
04 · Information Design
Dense product information, kept readable
The products required ingredient tables, dosage guidance, nutritional values, prices, article numbers, comparisons and explanatory text.
I established a modular hierarchy for headings, measurements, tables, price areas, benefit statements and product copy so information could change without requiring the whole layout to be rebuilt.
05 · Catalogs & Product Communication
The brand beyond the package
The same hierarchy extended into a 16-page vitamin and mineral catalog, wider product catalogs, flyers, sell sheets, posters and retail communication. A customer seeing a product box, a catalog page or a product flyer should recognize the same visual system immediately.
06 · Campaigns & Digital
A consistent identity without making everything look identical
Campaigns, mailings and newsletters could use a warmer, more illustrative voice than regulated product communication while still retaining the same logo, hierarchy and overall visual character.
The system also extended online through Sanafort’s responsive corporate website and digital product presentation, carrying the structure of the print communication into a different medium.
07 · Illustrated Film
Six multilingual explainer films for Mycotrition
As part of my role as Creative Director for Sanafort, I also made a series of six explainer films for Mycotrition GmbH, a company connected to Hawlik Gesundheitsprodukte GmbH. Sanafort sold Hawlik products in Switzerland.
I adapted the supplied texts into storyboards, illustrated each scene in a watercolor style, animated the films as motion graphics, and supervised the narration recordings in person. The films were produced in German, French and English.
View the Mycotrition project article →
View the Mycotrition case study PDF →
A later, separate 2021 commission for Hawlik expanded the work into ten illustrated explainer films with a different visual system. View the Hawlik project →
The Whole System
Identity, packaging, information and communication working together
What makes Sanafort significant in my portfolio is not any single box, catalog or campaign. It is the continuity between them. The same system had to remain useful through new products, revisions, production constraints, sales requirements and different media over several years.
Selected deliverables
- Corporate logo, wordmark and Kunden-Garantie seal
- Packaging architecture and product color system
- Folding-box dielines and print-ready artwork
- 3D mockups and product presentation images
- Ingredient, dosage and product information design
- Catalogs, flyers, posters and sell sheets
Across print, digital & motion
- Campaigns, mailings and newsletters
- Responsive corporate website
- Digital product communication
- Six Mycotrition explainer films in German, French and English
- Storyboards, illustration and motion graphics
- Coordination with management, advisors and printers
Full Case Study
See the complete Sanafort project
The 11-page PDF case study contains additional packaging formats, production dielines, product literature, catalog pages, campaign work and a detailed account of the Hawlik film series.
Related work
Graphic Design & Creative Direction →
Hand-Drawn Explainer Videos →
Commissioned Illustration →
Mycotrition — Mushroom Explainer Films →
Hawlik — Ten Illustrated Explainer Films →
Creative Direction & Visual Systems
Have a project that needs more than one isolated graphic?
If you need a visual system that has to remain coherent across identity, packaging, illustration, print or digital communication, send me a brief outline of the project.
