Top 50 packaging design & branding agencies

I wonder if we will start this list all singing off the same song sheet? Well we certainly can with Anthem, they have won Gold and Silver at the PAC Leadership Awards, recognising their excellence in packaging design, they also won a Pentaward for their Nestlé Noir Packaging. Anthems portfolio examples all seem somewhat American in their design, but they do have a worldwide presence with 2 UK offices amongst their studios. The Coca Cola packaging they did for the Beijing Olympics is outstanding, as is their Nestlé Rolo Cone packaging.

Whether you are a packaging designer looking for some eye candy or a brand marketeer looking for their next potential design agency – you are sure to find one here.

This one already opens up the analogy of 'are they a big fish in a small pond?' or a big fish in an ocean, which would make them small (blimey I talk some rubbish sometimes), well Big Fish are indeed a big fish in whichever water they choose to swim in, with a Design Week Award for the amazing stuff they did on Gü desserts, a Pentaward for Clipper Tea and a Gold Design Effectiveness Award for their work on Dorset Cereals proves they can be up there with the best. But are they as big a fish as a Blue Marlin?

I could start saying how blooming marvellous they are, but I guess that is the pun they intended in the name, or at least one of them, Bloom helps a brand grow, blossom and ultimately bloom into it's full glory. Be all that you can be, so they say! This agency is not a fan of entering awards, but that's not to say they haven't won any, they have been in D&AD Awards Books, a Pentaward & FAB Award for JW Black Label, have a Design Week Award for Best Branded Packaging and been awarded 'Best Design and Agency' from the Diageo Global Marketing Brilliance Awards for their Talisker limited edition gift pack design.

Are we back to that big fish conundrum already! I'm not going to pick any bones here, Blue Marlin are good at what they do and are voted Best Design Agency by the FoodBev Awards in 2011, have 10 DBA Effectiveness Awards and counting, 4+ Pentawards (the Pentawards are the only worldwide competition devoted exclusively to packaging design) and a Gramia (which sounds glitzy but is in-fact an award from the Grocer Advertising and Marketing Industry Awards). With offices in the UK, USA, and Singapore, Blue Marlin says that they are like a big family rather than a big impersonal agency.

Amazing work to look out for: Wonka Chocolate, Isklar, Balance Water, Tango, Shell Oil and Shell Deli2go and Schweppes amongst others.

It's a full house here and what a hand they play at the Brandhouse, they are an agency that uses the power of emotion to create high growth brands which deliver outstanding commercial success for clients and also won them international awards for effectiveness and creativity, awards such as DBAs and and at least 3 Pentawards in 2013 alone (I wonder if they have an awards shelf in their house :-) Look out for projects for Robinsons, Kellogg's, Britvic, San Miguel and Moulton Brown.

An agency that needs to learn about web design a little or at least outsource it for a refresh, but then they famous for packaging so i guess it doesn't matter, especially when they helped create the likes of 'Taste the Difference' for Sainsbury's – the first premium supermarket sub-brand which has grown from zero to a £1 billion brand. They are winners of highly acclaimed UK Design Effectiveness Awards (Overall Design and a Grand Prix) and have also received a Clio Award, a Design Week Award and a few Pentawards. Most of their greatest work is for clients like Sainsbury's, Simple and Fosters.

What can I say about BOS, well they aren't my boss so I can say what I like :-) Formerly called FLB, Brand on Shelf are a respected member of the branding and packaging design community and have been around for over 30 years building a solid reputation for effective award-winning design such as winning DBA Design Effectiveness Awards. So now that they are moving into their next phase and re-branded themselves as BOS to look forward, we can expect some bigger and better things in the near future. Portfolio pieces include: Cow & Gate, Asda, Indesit Hotpoint, Mira Showers and Kenwood.

Brandopus has nothing to do with an octopus* but has in just 7 years of business, grown to become one of the youngest agencies in Design Week’s most prestigious top 100, racing up the ladder to become number 20 in the UK on billings 2013. Quite an achievement for a company with such a silly name :-)

Other Accolades include winning a growing total of 14 DBA Design Effectiveness Awards (5 of which were won in 2014) making them officially among the five most financially effective design agencies in the UK, 6+ Grocer Gramia Awards - one of which is a Diamond Gramia, an International Mobius Award for their Northern Foods brand re-design and a Silver Pentaward in 2013. Ohh, and before I forget, Brandopus have also been named The Grocer's Agency of the Year for Packaging in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 – I think there might be a pattern going on for 2014, and The Drum's Design London Agency of the Year in 2012 – beat that for a 7 year old. Let's keep an eye on them to see how far their 8 limbs can take them…

*yes I know I'm being a Neanderthal – an opus or Magnum Opus is 'the greatest work' so there we have it – the greatest branding.

Brand Union began in 76 as Sampson Tyrrell, it then formed a union with the WPP group in 86, and was renamed to become Brand Union in 07. They have now merged with 5 other agencies to form a Super Union (not a special onion). Under their old guise they were named design agency of year by the Marketing Magazine before and certainly have a few superb examples of international branding in their portfolio to look out for, one in particular is that they are brand guardians for the giant that is Vodafone. Also in the portfolio is branding for the Premier League, Shazam, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch and Peroni. Lets hope this Union carries on going longer than Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt :-)

Bulletproof? Really? Let us find out shall we… we can find they are the 4th best design agency in the UK according to The Drum Magazine in 2013 (the list is made up by incorporating ranks from financial, client and peer reviews). What really begins to define them as a bulletproof business is when you look at their 3 inter-linked disciplines, using the latest 'buzzword' skills in the industry, they use 'shopper marketing' skills combined with an immense design ability in branding and packaging to lead this firm to excel, gaining clients such as: GSK, Coca-Cola, Schweppes, Kenco, Heineken, Bacardi, Strongbow, Sainsbury's and Cadburys. With clients like these, you'd be sure to think that they are bulletproof.

This agency is a structural packaging design company that has some unusual patented packaging products that attract some big blue chip names, the main attraction is their patent for a cardboard engineered sliding mechanism which is amazing in use and really sets off any packaging design. Amongst their award honours are a Pentaward, 3 Good Design Awards, 2 iF Communication Design Awards and numerous American Package Design Awards. Oh and before my memory slides away, they were also named 'Design Team Of the Year' at the 2011 UK Packaging Awards & 'Design Company Of The Year' at the prestigious UK Packaging Awards in 2009.

Another International number here, for 30 years CBA have worked alongside brands at every stage of development with a huge network of 258 staff working out of 13 offices around the world.

CBA say that they design brands with heart, well their hearts must really be pumping with passion as they have received awards from the Superdesign Awards, 2 Red Dots, Sol Awards and 5 Pentawards in 2013 alone… thankfully their recently re-designed website has stopped harping on about awards as much as their old one (which went into a bit of an overkill) so now they just concentrate on their work with decent mini case studies with ROI results. Much of the best work comes in from the Paris office, so head over to their project archive and view their portfolio by office. Notable International clients include Nestlé, Givenchy and Unilever.

These guys actually hold TWO of their own awards (how cool is that?), so content in the fact that they have won so many awards (DBA Design Effectiveness, International Mobius Advertising Awards, FAB Awards, Benchmark Awards, Red Dot Awards, IPA Effectiveness Awards, Chip Shop Awards, and D&AD's to name but a few...) that they encourage further creativity by dishing out their Shine Award in a competition to encourage students and their own BlueSky Awards to encourage their staff as well.

Coley Porter Bell can make your brand beautiful, make it stand out from a crowd and attract attention by carefully thinking about how the different consumer facing elements of your brand will fit together.

Keep an eye out for the work for Innocent, Nescafé, Inish Turk Beg, Tetrapak, Cadburys Buttons, Tesco, Lemsip, Hellmann's, John West, Schwartz, Schweppes, Müller and the Museum of London.

Well, if you are into your branding and packaging, you will already know that Design Bridge are the 'daddy' on the international circuit and a benchmark for other agencies to try and at least aim for, if not to try and surpass! Named as Agency of the Year in 2010 by the highest rated packaging awards - the Pentawards. They have also won 4 more individual awards in 2011, 6 more in 2012 and 4 more in 2013 (which includes a rare Platinum Award). Other recent hauls include 5 DBA Design Effectiveness Awards (2 were in 2014) and 2 Mobius Awards across 2012 and 2013.

How do they keep doing so well after 25 years in the game? Well they have their own internal awards system to keep themselves on the tips of their toes, the award originally started way back in the 90s as a bit of fun and was originally called ' The Dogs Bollocks Awards'. As the Group grew, they created a judging system that allows the truly great ideas to be recognised, regardless of market, discipline or brand owner. They used a clear set of criteria to judge the entrants, the shortlisted projects then go forward to an end-of-year contest, where the highest scorer takes the ultimate prize. Design Bridge also track the progress of the previous year’s finalists to award their own version of DBAs Design Effectiveness trophies. The spirit of the original 'Dogs' awards still lives on with them, with bone trophies and dog-tags presented to all the winners. How good is that! Especially for an independent agency...

Keep a look out for their clients branding successes such as: Kapiti, Tiger Beer, Glow, Nescafé, Merula, UEFA Champions League and Maison Blanc, all of which are exemplary.

We thought that it was only fair that having researched thousands of studios to bring you this article on the top 50 award winning packaging design and branding agencies, that we’d insert a cheeky little advert for ourselves – Design Intellect.

Design Intellect are a nimble boutique design agency that have been around the block and back, we’ve been going strong since 2003. We combine small agency focus with big agency thinking to provide a complete range of branding, design for print, packaging, web design and strategic services to clients over a wide range of business sectors. We love working with businesses to help bring their communications to life, drive growth and deliver beautiful thought-provoking design solutions with the perfect blend of creativity and effectiveness. We are down-to-earth, friendly, approachable and efficient.

We work with marketers, marketing departments and individuals to provide all the creative services they need. No job is too big and no job is too small, we have experience in working with huge blue-chip clients and we have also worked with 100s of smaller clients on a wide range of projects – from small artwork jobs to larger projects encompassing branding, print and web.

Whomever we work with, we apply the same level of creativity, attention to detail and passion on their project. We want to make marketing material look awesome and work hard.

Are they on LSD? Never seen a red dragon in my life or a green one for that matter :-) Another independent global agency with offices spread in 8 locations around the world. Awards aside (as they have won plenty), is the volume of work displayed on their website as once you get past the initial 15 case studies then there are hundreds of projects on their website (322 at the last count), look out for Tropicana, Lafarge, Vittel, STA Travel, London Stock Exchange, Douwe Egberts, Kingsmill, Greenall’s London Dry Gin, Carte d'Or, Casio, Ebay, AC Nielsen, and, and, and the list goes on…

Echo are in my top branding and packaging agencies list as a wild card but they are definitely one to watch, formed as a breakaway from the award winning packaging giants Blue Marlin in 2004 and are already a 30 strong team and have also sneaked in in the Design Week top 100 survey for purely packaging at No. 73 in 2010. These guys would be lot higher if they had other disciplines to their bow – they seem pretty good at bringing the multi-disciplined world of graphics, structural packaging, innovation and product design together to form a great unit. Echo have some big brands under their belt such as Cobra, Carling, Cow & Gate, Sure, Axe (Lynx) and WD40. Certainly one to watch. Would you like me to say that again? Oh, sorry you have already heard in an echo... teehee.

Where do I start with this one? The new Elmwood website is fantastic and fully demonstrates their ability in the realm of branding and design, which is not surprising as they have won more DBA International Design Effectiveness Awards than any other agency in history, 40 of them and counting including the 6 they won in 2014! (Elmwood currently tops the revolving 3yr table, with Pearlfisher in second and BrandOpus in third). Take a look on their website at the awards page as it's absolutely humongous (and I'm not talking about minor stuff like swimming badges listed either), the major ones posted besides the DBAs are:

• 10 NY Festivals Advertising Awards
• 21 Mobius Awards
• 7 Pentawards
• 26 Roses Creative Awards
• 14 Fresh Awards
• 7 Cream Awards

So why are they so good? Well their work generally increases product sales without any advertising, view the quality of their creative work and you'll find out what I mean, especially in the case tidies as these contain the all important ROI and quantifiable sales uplift. They also put into practice what they do, and have designed and marketed their own beer and tea, I want some!

Clients include: ASDA, Durex, Welcome to Yorkshire, Act on CO2, BBC Talent and Comic Relief, but be careful though as their website is beautifully interesting and you may get submersed into it :-)

I think Dew Gibbons and his mates (oh, I mean partners) have been on the wacky backy when they came up with their new brand name ‘Free the Brids’, read the story and it’s quiet a tenuous link to say the least. At least their work lets them be as wacky as they want, as it’s great! They specialise in designing health, beauty and luxury brands. Some of their clients, such as Boots, Boehringer Ingelheim and P&G, have been with them since they began as an agency, which says a lot.

The three hands-on partners run the business and strive by the mantra that Beautiful knowledge feeds beautiful thinking. Awards include a plethora of DBAs and plenty of others... DG&P were also 1st place in the Drum 2015 Design Census.

It's nice to have an agency that does exactly what it says on the tin. As their name suggests, they continuously look to establish brands that think ahead. FB build powerful brands with an exacting blend of skills and disciplines from their 25 global offices and their awards include those from the New York Festivals, Red Dot Communication Design Awards, IF Communication Design Award, Pentawards virtually every year, and some Design Week Benchmark Awards.

Future Brand London won Marketing’s Branding agency of the year for 2012, probably because of it's work on London 2012 :-)

On their website are really informative free downloads – a Country Brand Index and a Future Brand Index. Global brand work includes some beautiful examples for Microsoft, GSK, Intel, BA, London 2012, Barclays, American Airlines, Mastercard and even branding a whole country – Peru, I wonder who is bigger, Microsoft or Peru? Silly question really.

We are good, are they really? So easy to be set up for a fall here but thankfully they are, especially as they are ranked as one of the top 5 most effective design agencies in the UK according to the DBA Design Effectiveness league table, they have picked up a Gold and a Silver so far in 2014 already. These awards are judged by a panel of respected businessmen and women and are the only award on the planet that validates the quality, impact and effectiveness of design work. So if you are in with these awards then yes you are good, maybe very good – especially when in the last five years no one has won more Golds than Good, or is that God!

An award winning packaging and branding agency with roots going as far back as 1967 (surprised it's not 1966), Holmes and Marchant remain one of the most established design agencies and continue to strive for new ideas that match the level of their first great idea; to sell advertising space on milk bottles! Sounds bonkers now but was revolutionary and visionary back then. Massive portfolio with lovely portfolio pieces include Vimto, Diageo, Buxton Water, Unilever and Nestlé. Shame not all of the portfolio entries have the work displayed in detail though.

Oh, and for those of you who have wondered what happened to the legendary branding group Lloyd Northover – well they are now owned by H&M and trade under their name.

I've thrown this one in to add value to the packaging agencies that are in this list. HRG are ranked by Marketing Week as the No.1 retail marketing agency, HRG produce amazing in-store theatres, POP and Sales Promotion. HRG have won 34 Point of Purchase Advertising International (POPAI) Awards since 2008, which is more than any other company in the POP industry. Their portfolio shows us some shining examples for Nokia, Cow & Gate, Kellog’s, Blackberry and their work for HMV is exceptionally superb.

Ulrika-ka-ka-ka from Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, do you think that's where they got their name from, no, didn't think so either :-) Identica-ca-ca-ca rocks. They have also been around for an age, they designed the branding for Universal Studios and did a brand refresh for Vodafone, now you can't get much more global or different than these two. Their branding genius is in their mass appeal and the trick of designing a brand for one person whilst engaging a whole 'wider' audience. Their iconic brands do things their way, they do not borrow or copy from their competitors. Identica create, restore and evolve iconic brands into beautifully simple identities which radiate from the heart.

An oldie here, Interbrand started in branding when the world still thought of brands as just another word for logo :-) And yes, I know they are massive (40+ offices) but they are not interested in just being the world's biggest brand consultancy, they want to be the most valued, after all they were the ones that changed the world's view of branding and brand management by creating brands and managing them into valuable business assets.

Sales spiel over, now lets get down to the nitty gritty, what have the won or done? Well, you know McDonalds, that's them, HSBC? them too, Bing, Samsung, 3M, Barclays, HP, Mercedes, AT&T? also them, see what I mean, you know who the brands and you know that Interbrand have certainly done their job.

Awards include: loads of REBRAND Awards, Super Design Awards, Communication Arts Awards, AGDA Awards, Creativity International Awards, Transform Awards, Inova Awards, Agency of the Year by Marketing Magazine, RETA Award, Red Dot Award, ARC, LACP, Topcom, Cropak, Gute Gestaltung (whatever that is?), RGD, DDI and Benchmark Awards... Tell you what, my fingers are getting tired, hope you got the gist of how good they are :-)

On their website is a great rundown of the best global brands, Oh and check out the client list, it's longer than most of all of our arms (and maybe legs).

In packaging or branding, getting seen is half the battle, JKR also believe that great branding must convey a brand's unique character at a glance, it's just not enough to express a brand engagingly and originally. To be truly charismatic, the art is making it look effortless...

I personally love their work for the Birds Eye range, Heinz, Guinness, Ambrosia, Youngs and so on, go and check them out as they make brands project the 'things' that make them different, rather than reflect the comfortable conventions of their parent FMCG categories.

For the the awards statistics fans out there, they have won 5 DBA Effectiveness Awards (1 was in 2014), 2 Marketing's Design Awards, an Over The Counter (OTC) Marketing Award and a Marketing Week Engage Award for their packaging. JKR consistently tops the top 10 in DW's Top 100 overall (8 in 2010, 7 in 2012 and 2013) and averages either the top No.1 or No.2 spot for packaging!

Kinneir Dufort are a unique agency in that they bridge the divide between packaging, product design and manufacturing, so if you are after a cutting edge structural product designed with graphics applied and help with manufacturing or tooling then these are the guys for you. They have won numerous awards from around the globe including: Design Council Awards, 9 DBA Design Effectiveness Awards, Design Week Awards, 3+ Red Dot Awards, an iF Award, a Horners Award and even a Good Design Award from Japan. A perfect integration between brand and product design with some really interesting case studies on the website.

Landor are the mother of all branding agencies, their founder 'Walter Landor' helped to invent branding and they have been re-inventing it ever since. Landor have more than six decades of experience with the world's most successful brands – a legacy that benefits their clients every day. It's amazing that their design archives are not in a basement but are displayed in the Smithsonian Institute. The historical brands that they have been a major part of include Coca-Cola, Levis, WWF, FedEx and Bank of America. Their massive list of current branding work (305 case studies and counting) includes: Alcatel, Alfa Romeo, Avaya, Blackberry, BP, Citroen, Heinz, HP and Panasonic. You can guess that their awards list is too massive to go into detail here, it would be enough to fill a whole website.

Around the world, Landor clients are upending the standard approach to doing business. It used to be: build products first and build brands later. The Landor strategy is just the opposite: start with your brand promise and lead with it. Turn the brand into the driver of your business not just another way of packaging it. Landor are simply amazing.

Lewis Moberly believe creativeness and commercial viability go hand in hand, this shows as its apparently the only company to hold both the top awards for Design Excellence (the D&AD President's Award) and the top award for Design Effectiveness (DBA Design Effectiveness Grand Prix Award), it also has a D&AD Gold and 3 Silvers, a Design Week Best of Show and over 400 other international awards.

LM are renowned in the premium category, their website has a good variety of pdf case studies and a great selection of branding / packaging in their portfolio which includes: Gatwick, Moét, Boots, Duchy of Cornwall, The Body Shop, Selfridges, Lindt and Dior.

Also, in late 2013 Mary Lewis was the President of the Design Jury at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

I'm glad these guys have finally redesigned their site as their last one was awful and didn't show themselves off to the true extent of their ability, this one is better if a little clunky! Their accolades include awards from: D&AD, Design Week, The Marketeer, New York Festival, Design, Fresh, Creative Circle, Epica, Cannes Lion, Mobius, Big Chip, Robert Horne, Pentak and the Cream Awards… OK I get it – no need to show off :-) There is a nice cross selection of design disciplines shown, they even branded that minor pop group One Direction and the staff rollovers are funny.

Not really a surprise that MW have won awards for their work, especially when playing with the big budgets of high-end luxury packaging. I'm sure everyone would like to play with those kinds of figures and come up with some exemplary creative too. On that front, MW don't disappoint, it's just a shame that they are redeveloping their website at the moment, all the delights of their previous portfolio isn't on show at the moment. I will update this entry when their new website is live again... Can't wait to see some decent new stuff.

This list is all about award winning design agencies… and although OP aren't technically award winners in their current incarnation, they are masters of PR for grabbing client attention rather than entering design competitions (saying that, the founders are 2 former bigwigs from Design Bridge and undoubtably have plenty of combined accolades under the belts).

However, I feel they have the right be on this list as they can bat with the big boys of design, being described by clients as ‘a big agency in a small package'. Their design aims to drive consumer purchases by utilising the automatic, intuitive, ‘unthinking’ part of the brain – a human evolution that knows what’s good for us and what’s not: visually designing brands that are akin to the good edible mushroom and not poisonous toadstools...

I'm sure Lady Penelope had a butler called Parker, no relation to Parker Williams of course, PW are by no means your subordinate packaging supplier, they are multiple award winners that want to get your brand noticed, they dig deep to understand a brand from consumer's point of view, to drive the brand within the place it lives, either on shelf or in the corporate world.

Projects of note include Sainsbury's Taste the difference range for their design strategy, identity and design across 1300 products which delivered a 23% increase in sales and won them a DBA Design Effectiveness Award, and of course my favourite which is the Simply Organic range.

I hope this Path doesn't take me down the wrong direction, but lead the right way? Award winning Path observe the life cycle of packaging and the consumers interaction with it, using these insights to combine specialist structural innovation with inspired graphic design to achieve solutions with a difference. Must be on the right Path then… or at least they are on the path to pick up their latest DBA Design Effectiveness Award in 2014 already :-)

PF are passionate about the power of design and the importance it plays in a brand's commercial success, all of their design(s) have reaped commercial rewards for their clients and indeed reaped awards for themselves, in abundance! They say they like winning awards for their creativity, just as well as they have won loads of international design awards so far! Pearlfisher have been awarded Golds in nearly all the major international design awards including:

• A Cannes Lion
• An LIA Grand Prix and a Gold
• 12 FAB Awards and a Grand Prix
• 10 Awards from The Dieline
• 18 Pentawards
• 11 D&AD Pencils
• 10 NY Festival Medals
• 11 GDUSA American Graphic Design Awards
• 5 Design Week Awards and 4 Mobius Awards

But more important to them is winning the heart (and filling the pockets) of their clients for the success of their designs in commercial markets, this is demonstrated as they are top of the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards league table for the total number of Design Effectiveness Awards won by any agency. Period. They have won DBA Design Effectiveness Awards for the last 16 years consecutively and now have 32 DBAs and counting. There is some fantastic work on their site including articles on: Green & Blacks repositioning, Coca-Cola Blak (coke with coffee extracts?!?). Personally, I love the work on Innocent Smoothies, Nude Skincare, Jamie Oliver, Heinz, Waitrose and This Water. Also keep an eye out for their good web articles on how words are vital to brands – all about putting a name to a face, and a voice to an idea.

An agency that has won a multitude international design awards including: DBA Design Effectiveness Awards, Marcom Awards, GDUSA American Graphic Design Awards, a Gramia, Pentawards, FABs, Dieline Awards, Chip Shop Awards and a European Design Award.

Their portfolio shows off their best work for Tesco Finest, Ferrero Rocher, TicTac and Kinder (that's not Tinder LOL).

This award winning branding and packaging agency try to capture a brand's essence with a simple, clear and creative solution that attempts to instantly engage the consumer. Well? Isn't that what we all try to do, I thought that was the whole idea of packaging :-) At least they summarised it for all of us who would hope to achieve their level! They do some (well a lot of) amazing 'own brand' work for Tesco and Selfridges, as well as simply stunning creative for the Food Doctor, Speedo (thankfully swimming goggles rather than dodgy trunks), Debenhams and also have a great selection of brands on their logos page.

SomeOne is an award-winning design practice that strategically launches, relaunches and protects brands world-wide, they say they do branding and not blanding by creating symbols of change rather than changing the symbol. An agency after my own heart as their clients meet and work with the designers there rather than the suits to create exciting ideas to change the future of a company, it's products or services so that they profit from change. All big words but we can see by looking at the major award in this arena they they don't just walk the talk, they do what they say and have won multiple awards for nearly 5 years running in the Transform awards, a DBA Design Effectiveness Award and a Blades Award (the Blades are the only awards scheme to be judged by clients, focusing solely on the creative execution of campaigns). Not bad for a company that has only been going that long.

But what is most important in the award stakes are the fact that in the Drum Client Poll 2013, SomeOne were voted the No1 design agency by their peers in the UK design industry.

For those that are interested in sport, Springetts have done a lot of sports branding, including the corporate id for Manchester United, the Barclays Premiership and the Rugby Football Union (or RFU and WRU). Packaging wise, they help clients create and grow their brands through strategic thinking and engaging design solutions, notable examples are: Weetabix, Evian, Youngs and Twining’s. Even the the man from Del Monte, he said yes to them, so they must be good :-) Good enough to be a 4x DBA Design Effectiveness Award Winner (the newest in 2014), hell yes! Oh and not forgetting the other 3x A Awards, 1 IPA, 2 Mobius, 4 Pentawards, 3 FABs, 1 red dot, 2 Starpacks and 2 Fresh Awards :-)

We all like a good honest company don't we, STB have a simple no-nonsense and no-bull approach, combine that with their orientation towards being designer led (21 out of it's 30 staff are designers), making them a good all-round honest Joe. In terms of awards (for a combination of print and packaging) they have won some Pentawards, Cream Awards, NBCA's and are highly commended in the Marketing Design Awards. STB also appear above mid table on both the Drum top 100/Design Week top 100 to give them the title of one of the largest 'graphic design' only studios in the UK. Love their work for Antalis / McNaughton Paper, Morrisons, Black & Decker and Wilkos. Not your average potato print design going on here!

Stranger and Stranger are no stranger to winning awards, they have won a pile of them since they started in 1994 and more importantly, they have helped sell a billion bottles of beer, wine and spirits in one of the world’s most competitive sectors. That gets my vote! Yep you might have guessed that S&S are a specialist entry for alcoholic drinks branding, with a mass of awards from within the sector, Gold medals from Beverage World, International Spirits Challenge Design & Packaging Awards (ISC) and the International Food & Beverage Awards (FAB). I personally love the design for Zarco Tequilla, Solerno Orange Liqueur, Ogio wine for Tesco and of course Kraken Rum, yum yum!

Taxi have over 130 national and international awards to date including the coveted New York International Grand Award (which apparently is just a shiny silver fruit bowl, come on NY put your hand in your pocket a little more), an Epica, D&AD (in-book), Pentawards, Cannes Silver Lion and a Design Week Benchmarks trophy. Not bad, but I bet you couldn't put a fruit pastel in your mouth without chewing it? (No, Rowntree's is not one of their clients - no idea why I said that). P.S. I love the Clarks Superlight Shoe POS concept, it's ace!

How much is that duck worth in that window? OK, I'll not go down that route this time with this beomoth! Turner Duckworth design consumer brand identities and packaging that generate commercial results and creative awards. They are ranked No.2 in Packaging Design, No.8 in Corporate Branding and No.11 across all disciplines in 2013 by the Design Week Survey (the survey uses data from the top international design awards to rank agencies creative performance).

With awards, like the chicken and the egg conundrum, which comes first? Decent clients or awards, where do you start? Well it is rare for a massive brand like Coca Cola to win an award but that they managed to win a Cannes Festival Grand Prix - a big achievement to do this kind of iconic design for such mainstream brand. Other awards include: multiple Mobius Awards, a Grammy, a D&AD Yellow, an Epica, Best of Show at the International FAB (Food and Beverage) Design Awards and a lot of Dieline Awards.

It's no wonder that Turner Duckworth had been awarded the inaugural “Agency of the Year 2009” award in recognition of the most Pentawards won by any one agency since the competition started in 2006 (now their league table is based on a rotating 3 years wins). Client work to look out for on their site: Coca Cola, Amazon's brand development, Waitrose packaging, Brains (Welsh Beer, get in!), Virgin Atlantic, Burger King, Kraft Foods, Miller, Samsung, Sprite and Visa.

So who is Tynan and why is he arcy? Especially when they have such lovely work, there is certainly no need to throw any toys out of the pram as far as I can see. Tynan D'Arcy have been producing effective and successful brands since way back in 1991, an agency that keeps iconic brands engaging and one that helps challenger brands find their voice within the marketplace. A beautifully simple website showing effective work for Selotape, Cadbury, Pretty Polly and Quorn of all things. Brilliant stuff!

venture three are a branding specialist with a tendency to lean towards motion graphics, they have done some amazing work for Sky, BAA, Fox, KLM, Credit Suisse, The Times, Penguin, Manchester United TV, HMV (of which their launch of pure hmv is lush), besides their lean towards motion graphics they do brand work across all mediums as shown in their various case studies.

venturethree deal with the totality of what you see and feel about a brand and always start from a very early point in the whole process, creating 'Mass Fantastic' for some of the biggest and most influential companies around the world. There is something of the intellectual about Venture Three, something calm and considered. So far their work has picked up 3x D&AD In-Book, a D&AD Silver Pencil, a UPC, 3x Transform Awards and a Marketing Week Effectiveness Award.

Stunning packaging design is on show here (flash website) from WdV, the Bombay Sapphire bottle is simply mind blowing, especially if you like a tipple of gin :-) There is also some really great work for Procter and Gamble, all from an award winning packaging agency that likes to think before they draw, and draw before they switch on their Macs. Hand me the crayons someone!

WD also partner with new challenger brands with a combination of up-front cash together with exposure to the long-term capital or sales growth of the brand that can be attributed to their contribution in reward. Talk about putting your money where your mouth is...

Blimey, I have a Z in my alphabetical list, they must have done badly in the old days of appearing in the yellow pages, bet they are glad of the internet now! Well Ziggurat say that all brands have stories to tell and that not all brands know how to tell their story, that's where Ziggurat come in as a storyteller, creating stories that entertain and inform, to form a story that has something to say with a point of view, creating stories that emotionally connect to people in a really extraordinary way so that consumers ultimately buy and connect with the brand and it's story. Lovely work for Bottle Green, Frijj, Higgidy, Pepsi, Red Sky and Walls. Oh, almost forgot, in case you were interested they have over 25 design awards in their cabinet, not bad for a 'Z' listing agency :-)

1HQ was in at 15th place in the Design Week Top 100 back in 2010 with 2 top five finishes in both the packaging and product design sections. In 2012 1HQ were as high as number ten in the Drum's top 100 design agencies.

It's staff are collectively formed from 2 older agencies so it's pretty tricky to track down all the collective awards they have won but the accolades include: an iF Award, a red dot, a DBA Design Effectiveness Award, a Starpack and a Millennium Product Award. Portfolio pieces to look out for are the Rowntree's Jellies packaging that was shortlisted for Marketing Design Awards and the really nice poppets redesign which got a PMAG Bronze.

Other clients include: Evian, Ryvita, Cathedral Cheese, Carte D'OR, Walls Magnum and Heinz.

I thought I’d place Arc at the bottom of an alphabetical list to give the others a chance further up the alphabet from this giant :)

ARC Worldwide (London) are the great brand activation arm of Leo Burnett and have won a host of John Caples Awards, Campaign Big Award, IPM Awards, MAA Best Awards and DMA Awards in the last year alone. It's clients in the UK include Mondelez, P&G, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Samsung and Tesco.

Now you are fully up to date with award winning packaging design, do you need a better way to display your brands in retail interiors? Well how about taking a sneak at this quick compilation of award winning retail interior design agencies:

• Dalziel & Pow – dalziel-pow.com
• Checkland Kindsleysides – checklandkindleysides.com
• JHP Design Ltd – jhp-design.com
• Sheridan & Co – sheridanandco.com