Now there’s a good boy

Can a designer obey a client’s every wish with the necessary dog-like devotion but without slobbering all over the place?

An unnamed petfood client recently asked Design Bridge Structure’s design manager David Helps to try the product. Helps lapped up an entire can of rabbit and turkey petfood and swears it was “absolutely delicious and very welcome – I hadn’t eaten before the presentation”.

And the juicy morsels were good enough for Design Bridge joint managing director Bill Goodenough, who declares himself “nervous that I might get hooked on it”. Creative director Rod Petrie turned his nose up, as he admits he “can bark without eating animal food”.

Wagstaffs creative director Steve Puxley sampled some GoodLife dog food when he was designing packaging for client Spillers two years ago. “I just wanted to try some,” says Puxley, who “didn’t manage a whole tin, though it was quite nice”.

But Blackburn’s head John Blackburn didn’t wolf down Denes Healthy Lifestyle petfood, for which he designed the packaging. “We’ve got a company dog called Fen – it would be very unfair to steal it from her,” he logically points out.