Uncle Nate Dog Treats Branding & Packaging | Art & Creative Direction

Packaging Design

FRONT OF PACK

BACK OF PACK

PROJECT

Giving a small batch dog treat maker a shelf-ready brand, from logo and color to packaging built to stand out in a crowded pet aisle.

ROLE

Creative & Art Director, freelance

COMPANY

Uncle Nate Dog Treats

STAKEHOLDER(s)

Co-Founders

SCOPE

Brand strategy and creative direction
Logo design
Color palette
Typography
Packaging design

The Brand Build

Uncle Nate Dog Treats is a small-batch, scratch-made dog biscuit brand built around one hero ingredient: peanut butter. With two product sizes, large biscuits and small biscuits, the brand needed an identity that could communicate the handcrafted, wholesome nature of the product while still feeling polished enough to hold its own on a shelf or in an e-commerce context.

The name Uncle Nate carries a lot of the brand's personality on its own. It's personal, approachable, and immediately suggests something made with care rather than produced at scale. The creative direction leaned into that personality from the start.

The task covered the full brand buildout: logo design, color palette, typography, and packaging for both SKUs.

The visual territory was warm and playful without tipping into childish. Dog treat brands tend to fall into two camps: overly cute and cartoon-heavy, or sterile and clinical. Uncle Nate needed to feel like neither.

The goal was a brand that a dog owner who cares about what they feed their pet would actually trust, while still having enough character and warmth to be genuinely likable on a shelf.

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HEADER FONT

SUPERFREAK REGULAR

BODY FONT

Cocogoose Pro Ultralight

The design approach pulled from several directions: a mascot or character element to give the brand a face, handcrafted touches that reinforced the small-batch story, and a badge-style structure that gave the packaging a grounded, established feel. Together those elements created a visual system that felt personal without feeling amateur.

Moodboard and Creative Approach

LOGO DEVELOPMENT

It started with finding the right balance between the brand's warmth and its credibility. The peanut butter focus and scratch-made process were central to the story, so every design decision was run against whether it reinforced those qualities or worked against them.

COLOR & TYPOGRAPHY

These were chosen to support the warm, handcrafted direction without leaning too rustic. The palette needed to feel appetizing and wholesome, the kind of colors that read as natural and trustworthy on a pet product without feeling clinical.

PACKAGING

Packaging carried the full system across two SKUs, with large and small biscuit formats each needing their own treatment while still reading as a cohesive family on shelf. Clear product differentiation between the two sizes was built into the packaging hierarchy from the start.

The Results

Uncle Nate Dog Treats launched with a complete brand identity and a packaging system built from scratch.

The brand enters the market with a visual language that reflects the quality and care of the product, warm enough to connect with dog owners, and polished enough to compete in a crowded pet treat space.