For years, our job at Spicer's Creative has been helping other people launch what they love. Logos, websites, packaging, signage, printed campaigns. We've sat on the client side of the table more times than we can count, listening to business owners describe the brand they can see in their heads.
Then we became the client.
We're Deanna and Maggie, two sisters and university-qualified graphic designers. Deanna studied a Bachelor of Arts (Graphic Design) at Charles Sturt University, and Maggie studied a Bachelor of Visual Communications (Graphic Design) at the University of South Australia. Together we built Spixal, a range of kids lunch boxes, lunch bags, drink bottles and backpacks designed to work together. This is what we learnt using our own design skills on every part of it, from the product itself to the packaging to the marketing.
It started with school bags
Our family has sold school bags and backpacks for more than 35 years, so we grew up around the back to school rush. Deanna came up with the Spixal name and idea back in 2010 and started with school bags. Life got busy, and the brand went on hold for a few years while she was raising her son after his premature birth at 27 weeks.
When we relaunched Spixal in 2025, we did it properly. Not just bags this time, but a full range of lunch boxes, lunch bags, bottles and accessories, all designed as one system. Being a mum through those years shaped the whole idea. Mornings are chaos. We wanted to design products that make them calmer.
Product design: designing a system, not a single product
The biggest thing graphic design teaches you is that nothing exists on its own. A logo has to work on a business card, a van and a website. A brand is a system.
We applied the same thinking to the products. The lunch box fits the lunch bag. The lunch bag fits the backpack. The drink bottle slides into the side pocket. When you design a range as a system, every piece makes the others more useful.
Some of our favourite design problems to solve:
Compartments that suit how kids actually eat. Our bento boxes keep the sandwich, fruit and crackers in their own spaces, and the silicone range seals every compartment.
Grown-up options for older kids. Teenagers don't want cartoon prints, so the Core stainless steel lunch boxcomes in solid colours with a 1200ml capacity and a divider that lifts out.
A round shape for grazers. The Roundie has six compartments around a centre dip container. Parents started using it as a snackle box for picnics and movie nights, which we never planned for, and we love that.
Colour and pattern: our favourite part
As designers, colour is where we have the most fun, but it also does a real job. We chose a set of colours that runs across the whole range, so parents can pick one colour and kit out the whole bag, or mix their favourites.
For younger kids we designed prints like Butterfly, Unicorn, Dinosaur Roar, Monster Truck, Let's Play and Astro Cat. Each print appears on the backpack, the lunch bag and the pencil case, so a five year old can spot their own gear in a pile of school bags. Our kids backpacks and lunch bags were designed side by side for exactly that reason.
When we mapped the market, most lunch box brands fell into one of two camps. Great function with very little design variety, or fun designs with no system behind them. We wanted Spixal to sit in the gap: high function and high form.
Packaging design: the first thing customers hold
Packaging is where a lot of new brands cut corners, and it's the first physical moment a customer has with you. For an online brand, the unboxing is the shop window.
The most important part of branding is consistency, and packaging design has to take on the same principles. Every piece has to consistently match in colour, design and messaging.
What being our own client taught us
Every decision is harder when it's yours. We now understand why clients take a week to pick between two shades of teal.
Consistency beats cleverness. The same colours, prints and voice across products, packaging and marketing do more than any single clever idea.
Design the system first. Whether it's a logo suite or a lunch box range, decide how the pieces fit together before you design any one piece.
Your customer's problem is the brief. Leaky lunch boxes, bags that fall apart by Term 2 and bottles that don't fit the side pocket. Every product started with a problem parents told us about.
Thinking about launching your own brand?
We've now been on both sides of the table. If you have a product idea and need help with the brand identity, packaging, website or marketing, we'd love to hear about it. Get in touch with Spicer's Creative and let's talk it through.
And if you've got kids heading back to school, have a look at what two designers did when they finally got to be the client. You'll find our full range of kids lunch boxes and school bags at spixal.com.au.
Written by Deanna Spicer and Maggie Murray, co-founders of Spicer's Creative and Spixal.