Pentagram has designed the packaging for 1882 Ltd’s first range of luxury candles and diffusers. 

1882 Ltd. is a design-led ceramics brand formed by the fourth and fifth generations of the Johnson Brothers family. One of the most successful Staffordshire potteries, Johnson Brothers produced and exported tableware from the 1890s to the 1960s.

Based in Stoke-on-Trent (which has long been the centre of the British ceramics industry), 1882 Ltd. combines cutting edge design and industrial craftsmanship in its carefully curated range of essential objects and unique pieces. 

Building on its original typographic brand identity, 1882 Ltd. asked Pentagram to create a bespoke range of packaging for a new range of luxury candles and diffusers, featuring its signature fragrance housed in bone china pieces commissioned from four leading designers. 

The collection consists of the Crockery candle and diffuser with Max Lamb, the Ceramic Garden candle with Bruce McLean, the Dissolve candle with Snarkitecture and the Lustre candle with Bethan Gray. The four distinctive designs use different ceramic techniques to create beautiful objects that can still be enjoyed once the candle has been enjoyed.

Designed to appeal to the luxury design gift market while protecting these delicate objects, the packaging features a matt black cardboard inner structure with a pale grey slipcase. The slipcase has the typographic 1882 Ltd branding and a version of each designer’s signature. Each slipcase is blind embossed with a pattern that wraps around the box, inspired by the design of the ceramic object held within.

“Our mission is to make beautifully designed and manufactured candles, but what really sells the object in a retail environment is the packaging”, explains 1882 Founder Emily Johnson. “The packaging designed by Pentagram does exactly that. It encapsulates the product, the brand and is the sexiest candle packaging I have seen for sure.”