Over the last 65 years, McDonald’s restaurants have become beloved for quality food and convenience. With over 60 million touchpoints every day, packaging matters.

We partnered with McDonald’s for a multi-year redesign of the brand’s global packaging system. At the center of the redesign is a graphics system, which serves as a single visual framework for the brand’s portfolio of products, capable of transforming the modern expression of the global icon and evolving brand perception along the way.

The packaging redesign is part of a broader brand evolution. With so much fresh and new at McDonald's it made sense for the global packaging to change in step with the direction the brand is taking. We took into consideration how we could support the renewed brand identity to foster a feel-good experience that works around the world.

The renewed packaging design brings a sense of joy and ease to the brand through bold graphics. Transitioning from a design system with prominent on-pack messaging, the graphic representations of menu items help make each of the structures more connected and evocative of McDonald’s’ playful point-of-view. No matter the combination of each unique order, from the cool, blue waves on the Filet-O-Fish® clamshell or the golden, melting cheese on the Quarter Pounder® with Cheese clamshell, the packaging makes for an expressive, visual system.

Our task was finding out what was really special about each menu item to design a system that would make it easy for others to do the same. There’s beauty in the simplicity of McDonald’s’ iconic menu items. We aimed to find the most special, recognizable and iconic expression of each – celebrating them in a way that makes people smile.

Anchored and inspired by the Golden Arches, each menu item is given the opportunity to appear as its best self: telegraphic, bold, and simple. Crucially, these aren’t literal interpretations of the menu across the entire system. For some items, the most fun aspects are the ingredients that make them - and for other items, it’s the way they make us feel.

Bringing personality to life through illustration allows for the packaging to be functionally unique, easy to identify, aesthetically minimal and, most importantly, emotionally joyful. Everything in this system has a purpose and helps activate McDonald’s’ brand positioning to make delicious, feel-good moments easy for everyone.

The redesigned packaging ensures that operations remain efficient for McDonald’s’ crew members making each meal. Each wrapper, clamshell and pack is designed to be identifiable where order assembly occurs. The easy-to-understand graphics drive recognition regardless of where in the world orders are being enjoyed.

The packaging roll-out will take place over the course of two years for one, cohesive look across the brand. However, early reactions from consumers and industry counts the new packaging as "enticing", "cheerful AF" and one of the best brand redesigns of the year.

The recognizable illustrations, which are the core of the packaging redesign, have found new life on social media as consumers reimagine them as nail art, wall art and fan-made merchandising.

The packaging is being leveraged as a core pillar in the brand's growth strategy, announced in late 2020, and will help deliver on McDonald's renewed purpose to drive greater impact.