Company background
Funky Cakes established by husband and wife Sean and Clare McBride, a fully qualified chef, designs and bakes bespoke handmade cakes and pastries, sourcing local ingredients. Funky Cakes have recently developed a new range of delicatessen products to be mass-produced for the commercial market.
This newly developed product required unique packaging solutions, to be innovative with functional product design, displaying the product, with the ability to change shape depending upon the size of the cake. Funky Cakes lack the necessary skills to such create such unique packaging designs and require skills in packaging and various CAD technologies to develop this novel packaging they wish to create.
In order to overcome this obstacle Funky Cakes was signposted to the North West Regional College (NWRC) who supported them through the Innovate US programme, funded by Department for the Economy (DfE), which equated to 30 hours of mentoring support from Aaron McKeever, NWRC Creative and Digital Media Consultant.
Both, Clare and Sean undertook specific upskilling focused on optimising digital designs using CAD technologies for print and packaging software, including industrial design and packaging, paper prototyping, choosing a package type, size, examining bespoke design considerations, creating mockups and considering print settings, pantones and costings.
On completion of the product, the upskilling Funky Cakes received, enabled them to develop a new product novel cake packaging solutions unique to them, ready for market launch. These products can now be packed and designed in house, creating fresh quirky products displays for themed events for their customers.
The skillsets learned will leave an incredible valuable legacy, enabling them to release future new products, offering bespoke packaging solutions, growing their business.
