Recently, we have been invited by DesighRush to participate in their article “The Best Frozen Product Packaging Designs“. Our packaging design for CFruit was chosen to be listed among other wonderful designs from all over the world. It’s a great honor to be in such good company.

Big THANKS to the DesignRush expert team for choosing us. Also, a very special THANKS to the CFruit team for a great collaboration. It inspires us to be better and create more beautiful projects.

The post The Best Frozen Product Packaging Designs appeared first on Creative Lemon.

Recently, we had a great pleasure to be included in the new issue of Creativver Packen Magazine. We shared our experiences with designing coffee packaging for several new brands from all over the world. Here is the entire article for you to enjoy.

The coffee industry has rapidly grown in the past years. Many new brands and small producers are trying to find their place in the local and global markets. Like a few other products before, coffee opened the whole new world of trends, brewers, rich flavors, and packaging designs that follow. It became a fashionable thing more than ever before.

Designing a coffee packaging is always a great challenge. Creating a unique visual identity that can stand out from the competition is just one part of the puzzle. If you have a strong illustration background, it can give you wonderful potential. For the last two years, Creative Lemon design studio had an opportunity to work on many coffee brands from all over the world. Most of these brands were brand new and help them to develop from the start was a great journey. Each of them has its unique story that needs to be explored. Sometimes it is all about the origin, sometimes it is more about the cause, and in some cases, it is both. Telling that story in a visual way and introducing it to the world became our specialty.

One of the coffee brands that have an incredibly unique story is Gora coffee. It’s a Danish brand with Ethiopian origin. Grown, roasted, and packed in Ethiopia, it has a great “impact at origin”. It means that production involves the local population (about 15 million people in Ethiopia depends on the coffee industry). Also, this coffee has a very unique flavor. The Arabica plants are sustainably grown in the shade of the forest canopy. There, the coffee cherries ripen slowly, absorbing nutrients and flavors of the forest, its fallen fruits, and rich flora. A very important role in this chain has insect and nectar-eating birds. They clean the plants so there is no need to use pesticides. That fact was a leading idea for the packaging design. The other brand that has an interesting background is Zemi coffee. This brand has a clear mission – to support small coffee producers and plantations all over the world and help the farmers to continue with sustainable production. The owner of this brand is coming from the family of coffee farmers, so he is very much involved in every step of the production too. Working with these small companies gave us a chance to learn more about the process and be involved. Also, it gave us a clear picture of the problems that need to be solved.

It became clearer that we need to think not only about the designs but also about packaging production as an important step. When you are designing for established brands with strong budgets, you can be creative with materials. But, when you are designing for small company brands, you have limited budgets that you need to use wisely. It is already a great challenge for them to go with sustainable production and reduce CO2 footprint. So, invest in a sustainable coffee bag’s material, in the beginning, can be a tough decision to make.

To keep the coffee fresh, packaging must meet some standards. It is extremely challenging to replace plastic or aluminum bags with plant-based, biodegradable, and CO2-neutral materials. Nowadays, there are more and more options that can be explored and used. But it takes time and money to invest. We can only support our clients and hope that they will survive the economic challenges long enough to become proud owners of all sustainable brands. One thing is for sure – now is the best time to be involved in the coffee packaging design revolution.

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Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to work with many entrepreneurial businesses. Whether they’re launching a new brand or introducing a new service, they all face the same challenge—how to position themselves in the market. Most entrepreneurs start by looking at the competition and thinking, “We can do better than this.” Then they try to create their own promotional materials, only to receive average—or sometimes disappointing—feedback.

Why does that happen?

You’re starting your own business. Your budget is limited, and there’s no investor waiting to finance your dream. Every decision comes from your own pocket, and that’s something worth respecting. Like many entrepreneurs, you’ve probably heard horror stories about advertising agencies charging thousands of dollars for work that didn’t meet expectations. So you decide to do everything yourself and save the money.

It seems like a sensible decision. But saving money isn’t always the same as making the right investment.

You can’t do everything on your own and expect professional results in every field. To pull that off, you’d have to be a superhero—and even then, there wouldn’t be enough hours in the day.

So, what can you do?

Instead of struggling on your own or immediately turning to a large advertising agency, consider working with a small design studio—another entrepreneurial business that understands exactly what you’re going through. Share your story. Explain where you want your business to be in a year or two. If you understand each other, you’ll know it almost immediately. The collaboration will feel natural, and you’ll grow together. If you don’t, you’ll know that too.

It’s a bit like a first date. The chemistry is either there, or it isn’t.

So, do your homework. Look for people who care about your business as much as you do—people who are passionate about what they create and genuinely want to see your brand succeed.

The best partnerships aren’t built on the biggest budgets. They’re built on shared trust, honest communication, and the excitement of creating something meaningful together.

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Do you love your job?

It’s a simple question, and there are countless articles trying to answer it. But let me ask it differently. Do you genuinely enjoy what you do every day, or do you spend half your working hours daydreaming about being somewhere else? You might be surprised by how many people quietly choose the second option. So why am I writing about this? Because I spent eighteen years working in advertising agencies.

A few days after graduating from the Academy of Applied Arts, I found my first job. My original plan was simple: spend ten years learning everything I could, work with different clients, gain experience, and then decide what came next. Of course, life had other plans. Especially when you’re making plans in Serbia.

My ten-year plan somehow became an eighteen-year one. Looking back, it was an incredible journey. I never stopped loving design. But somewhere along the way, I realized I no longer loved the environment I was working in. That left me with a difficult question:

What was I willing to sacrifice—my health or the career I still cared about?

There had to be another way. To create meaningful work, you need more than a desk and a computer. You need the right environment. Not just an office, but people who inspire you, a creative process that allows ideas to grow, and enough time for those ideas to mature before they’re judged. Looking back, those last two were often missing. And eventually, I understood where my stress was coming from.

I was constantly working. But I wasn’t creating. Or at least, I wasn’t creating work that felt worth the energy I was investing. Even when I produced something I was genuinely proud of, it sometimes never reached the client. Decisions were made long before the work had a chance to speak for itself.

The salary was good. But there are things money simply can’t buy. The satisfaction of creating something meaningful. The joy of enjoying the process, not just surviving it.

A year ago, I made one of the biggest decisions of my career. I left the agency and started my own design studio. Not because I wanted to stop designing. Quite the opposite. Because I wanted to keep loving design for many years to come. I knew I needed a different way of working—one that valued not only the final result, but also the creative process itself. Looking back, it was the right decision. So let me ask you that question one more time.

Do you love your job?

If the answer is yes, hold on to it. Protect it. If the answer is no, don’t ignore that feeling forever. No salary is worth sacrificing your mental or physical health. Life is too short to spend every Monday morning wishing it were already Friday.

If you’re going to keep telling yourself: “I CAN do it”, make sure you’re saying it about something that still brings you joy.

For me… it’s just another play-day.

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