In what might have been a tedious, soul-crushing exercise in making something large fit in a small space, Helm saw an opportunity to refresh the brand at the same time we shrunk the label. So we added a family/company history, a pithy section about the company’s values, and clear illustrations explaining the soap’s 18-in-1 (and more) uses and introducing Dr. Bronner’s refill/recycling program. We also kept plenty of Dr. Bronner’s Moral ABC, the founder’s visionary language, which, Helm writes “remains as potent, vital, and enigmatic as ever.”

The label’s reduced size opened up free space on the back of the bottle (previously, it had almost completely covered it). Leo Helm pointed out to his father that we might use the bottle as a lens to “correct” an anamorphic portrait of the Doctor Himself, printed on the inside of the label.

Finally, after years of the company referring to the product in print as “Dr. Bronner’s ‘Magic Soap’” we convinced them to make “Magic Soap” the name of the product, creating a clear brand difference between the generic castile soaps with which it now had to share shelf space.