A major redesign
During and after the War, Cadbury was limited in what they could produce. But the situation had a silver lining: it was a good time to look at the packaging and bring it up to date.
Cadbury hired Norbert Dutton, a well-known industrial designer, to ‘review all the firm’s labels and wrappings in relation to modern tastes and the requirements of the market’. And they gave him a thorough brief:
‘Modern ideas had to be linked to the traditional designs that had built up enormous public goodwill. New labels had to look well in the hand, on the counter and in the shop window. Finally it was vital to differentiate in design between the various recipe lines, since many chocolate purchases are made not by reading the name on the label but by immediate recognition of the familiar shape or symbol’.
Dutton created new designs, using the traditional Cadbury purple and gold for milk chocolate and red and gold for plain chocolate. ‘Cadbury’ was now to be written in a standard script based on William Cadbury’s signature across all packaging.