Project Work: Brand Redesign
From product-led to lifestyle-led: reimaging an established dog brand for today's pet parents.
The Top Paw® brand is a long-standing PetSmart brand—but previous iterations never fully reflected the warmth and lifestyle experience of modern pet parenting. In 2020, we reimagined the brand as a true lifestyle offering — softening the visual identity, elevating the messaging, and shifting the focus from product features to how products support dogs at every stage of life.
The result: a calmer, more confident brand experience designed to build confidence and trust with every purchase.
Click Through the Slideshow to See the Transformation
COMMUNICATION STRATEGY HIGHLIGHTS
The Angle: Proper Care –– A Crash Course
Pet care isn’t casual. It comes with questions, uncertainty, and a real desire to get it right. Because clarity builds confidence, we asked a sharper question: how do we inspire confidence not only in the purchase, but in the pet parent? Our answer: treat packaging like a crash course in responsible care.
Every panel earns its space — delivering concise, purposeful guidance that empowers rather than overwhelms. In a small space, we built something meaningful: reassurance.
By shifting the conversation from persuasion to education, we turned packaging into a confidence-builder — helping pet parents feel certain they're doing right by their pet at every stage of life.
The Tone: Sharing is Caring
Where do we begin? At the beginning.
We stepped into the mindset of a new pet parent — overwhelmed by options and full of questions. What are they trying to solve? What benefits might they overlook? How do they choose the right product, size, or fit for the safety and comfort of their pet?
The result was an FAQ-inspired approach designed to answer questions before they’re asked and support decisions in the moment.
By focusing on the pet parent’s needs, we shaped a tone rooted in empathy and clarity — offering calm in the chaos. Because sharing guidance builds confidence. And confidence builds trust.
The Execution: Curated Confidence Boost
Even a crash course needs a structure to make a lesson stick.
We treated each panel like a thoughtfully designed study guide — curated with infographics, charts, tips, and digestible insights that made complex information easy to understand and confidence easier to build.
Lifestyle photography, softer colors, and refined typography guided the eye and elevated comprehension. Rather than listing features, we built a visual system that invited learning and reinforced trust.
Scaled across 500+ SKUs, the system created consistency at shelf, simplified decision-making, and transformed packaging into clarity and confidence.
The Results: Success is in the Details
By meeting pet parents where they are — and recognizing the big responsibility of pet ownership — we built a brand experience grounded in empathy and expertise.
In a crowded marketplace, we chose reassurance over noise.
The Impact: A brand that feels less like a product line and more like a trusted partner — guiding pet parents through every stage of a dog’s life, from first baths to daily routines and everything in between.
By building clarity into every touchpoint, we built confidence into every purchase — making repeat engagement a natural next step, not a hard sell.