There are design projects where the brief almost writes the design. A manilla envelope. Two-colour print. Heritage seeds. A partnership between two of Ireland’s most respected conservation bodies. The result was always going to be something that looked like it had been pulled from a kitchen drawer in a walled garden — and that was entirely the point.
Designwest designed a series of seed packet envelopes for Irish Seed Savers Association (ISSA) in partnership with the National Built Heritage Service (NBHS), produced for distribution at the Bloom Festival in Dublin. Three heritage seed varieties were designed; two — Kilscanlon Spring Greens Kale and Tipperary Turnip Swede — were printed in quantities of 1,000 each on 108mm x 108mm square manilla envelopes using two-colour print on brown stock.
Project Overview
The seed packet envelopes were produced to support the partnership between Irish Seed Savers Association and the National Built Heritage Service, connecting Ireland’s food heritage with its architectural and landscape heritage.
Each envelope carries a front panel with botanical illustration, planting and harvesting information, organic certification details, and both the NBHS and ISSA logos. The back panel tells the story of each variety’s historical connection to a specific Irish estate or site identified in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH), with a QR code linking directly to the NIAH survey and references to both irishseedsavers.ie and buildingsofireland.ie.
The design system covers three varieties: Kilscanlon Spring Greens Kale (Brassica oleracea var. acephala), Tipperary Turnip Swede (Brassica napus), and Alexanders Herb (Smyrnium olusatrum). Kilscanlon and Tipperary were produced for Bloom 2026. Alexanders was designed and held as a completed artwork for future print runs.
The Client & Context
Irish Seed Savers Association, based in Scarriff, County Clare, is Ireland’s leading heritage seed conservation organisation. Its mission — protecting Ireland’s food crop heritage for future generations — drives a programme of seed collection, propagation, and distribution that keeps native and heritage varieties alive and in circulation.
The National Built Heritage Service (An tSeirbhís Páirceanna Náisiúnta agus Seirbhísí Fionboire in Irish; more recently known as the National Built Heritage Service under the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage) manages Ireland’s built and designed landscape heritage, including the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. The NIAH Survey of Historic Gardens and Designed Landscapes has identified over 6,000 historic gardens and designed landscapes across Ireland.
The partnership between ISSA and NBHS makes natural sense. Ireland’s heritage seed varieties — many of them cultivated in the walled kitchen gardens of historic demesnes — are part of the same cultural and material heritage that the NBHS works to identify and protect. Connecting a packet of Tipperary Turnip seeds to the estate records of Prospect House, Waterford, or linking Kilscanlon Spring Greens Kale to the kitchen gardens of Adare Manor in Limerick, gives each seed packet a story that is simultaneously botanical, historical, and Irish.
The envelopes were distributed at Bloom, Ireland’s premier garden festival, held in the Phoenix Park in Dublin — an ideal context for a project connecting living heritage seeds with Ireland’s designed landscape heritage.
The Brief
The brief required Designwest to design both the front and back of a square 108mm x 108mm manilla envelope in a two-colour format printed directly onto standard brown wage-packet style envelopes.
Front panel requirements:
- NBHS logo positioned first (partner precedence), alongside ISSA logo
- Botanical illustration of the seed variety
- Variety name and common name in clear hierarchy
- Latin species name
- Sowing and harvesting instruction table
- Average seeds per packet
- Open-pollinated seed declaration
- Organic certification details (Certified Organic IE-ORG-02, License No. 5629-EU-Agriculture)
- Best Before date
Back panel requirements:
- Variety name as heading
- Heritage narrative text connecting the variety to a specific Irish historic estate or site
- Reference to the NIAH survey
- QR code linking directly to the NIAH webpage
- Social media channel icons
- Dual website reference: irishseedsavers.ie and buildingsofireland.ie
Critical print constraint — no bleed: Because the artwork was printed directly onto pre-made standard manilla envelopes, no bleed was possible. All front artwork had to sit at least 10mm inside all edges. All back artwork had to sit at least 10mm from edges and avoid the flap and glue areas entirely.
Printing method: Two-colour print on manilla brown stock was chosen over full CMYK simulation for two reasons: cost-effectiveness, and a more authentic, rustic finish more appropriate to the heritage character of the product.
The Challenge
Two-colour print on a brown substrate is one of the most demanding constraints in packaging design. You cannot rely on the full colour range to differentiate elements, create depth, or reproduce photography. Every design decision must work within what two ink colours — in this case a deep forest green and the manilla brown of the envelope itself — can achieve together.
Replacing photography with illustration. The original brief direction included photographic images. These were replaced with botanical outline illustrations to suit the two-colour printing constraint. Line illustration on brown stock is not a compromise — it is a design decision that produces a stronger, more characterful result than photography ever could in this format. The etched, engraver’s style drawings of the turnip, kale, and Alexanders plant feel entirely consistent with historical seed catalogues and botanical print traditions.
Logo handling on brown stock. ISSA’s logo, which carries fine detail, needed to be darkened for sufficient impact against the manilla background. The NBHS logo — featuring the Irish harp and government identity — required careful placement and sizing to maintain legibility at the 108mm envelope width while satisfying NBHS’s logo prominence requirements as the lead partner.
Content volume in a small format. A 108mm square is not a generous canvas. The front panel needed to carry two logos, an illustration, a variety name in a clear typographic hierarchy, a sowing/harvest table, seed count, open-pollinated declaration, certification mark, EU organic mark, and best-before date. Every element had to earn its place.
The flap and glue constraint on the back. The back panel of a wage-packet envelope includes a flap and a glue strip. All body copy, the QR code, and the web addresses had to be laid within the safe area below the flap line and inside the 10mm edge margins — a usable area significantly smaller than the 108mm square suggests.
Our Design Approach
Designwest resolved the brief by committing fully to the two-colour rustic register rather than working around it. The manilla brown stock was treated as a design element in itself, not a limitation. The deep forest green ink sits against the warm natural paper with exactly the quality of a well-made heritage product — confident, understated, and grounded.
The botanical illustrations are the centrepiece of the front panel. Each variety is given a large-format line drawing in the left half of the face: the turnip with its characteristic round root and leafy crown; the kale with its broad, crinkled leaf structures; the Alexanders with its tall, branching umbelliferous form. These illustrations have the quality of botanical specimens — precise without being clinical, familiar without being decorative.
The typographic approach uses two weights and two styles across the variety names: a bold, rounded sans-serif for the primary name, and an italic script for the common name qualifier (Swede, Kale, Herb). This combination gives each packet a clear identity while echoing the typographic conventions of traditional nursery catalogues and seed merchants.
The back panel uses the same deep green on manilla for a clean, editorial layout. The variety heading is set in the bold rounded sans-serif, followed by the heritage narrative in a legible body face. The NIAH reference paragraph is set in italic, visually distinguishing the archival context from the growing description. The QR code, social icons, and dual website URL are positioned in the lower section of the safe area.
Design Rationale & Visual Decisions
Colour and Stock
The choice of two-colour print on manilla stock was not a budget compromise — it was the right choice for this product. A full-colour glossy seed packet would have been at odds with the heritage character of the varieties themselves and the organisations behind the project.
Deep forest green on natural brown kraft paper reads as organic, artisan, and serious. It sits within a visual tradition of heritage seed packaging, botanical printing, and Irish craft production that gives the packet instant legibility as something considered and authentic. A child picking this up at Bloom would know instinctively it was different from a commercial seed packet. A gardener would trust it before reading a word.
Illustration Style
The botanical line illustrations were chosen over photography because they perform better within the two-colour constraint and because they are truer to the heritage of the product. Irish Seed Savers has been saving seeds that predate the modern nursery industry. Botanical illustration predates photography entirely. The visual language is appropriate in the deepest sense — these illustrations look like they belong in the same tradition as the seeds they describe.
Each illustration is detailed enough to be genuinely informative — the kale leaf structure shows the correct curlature and veining; the turnip illustration shows both the root form and the characteristic leafy growth — while being loose enough in line weight to print cleanly at small scale in a single green ink.
Typography
The typographic system uses contrast between weight and style to establish hierarchy quickly in a small format. The primary variety name — Tipperary Turnip, Kilscanlon Spring Greens, Alexanders — is set in a bold, friendly rounded sans-serif that is legible at a distance. The secondary common name — Swede, Kale, Herb — is set in a contrasting italic script, lighter in weight, which creates visual rhythm without requiring additional colour or size.
The sowing/harvest information is presented as a structured table — three rows (Sow, Harvest, Average seeds p.p) with left and right columns — giving the practical growing information an official, reliable character that suits the certified organic context. The table is light enough not to crowd the illustration but clear enough to read at a glance.
Heritage Narrative on the Reverse
The back panel text is where the NBHS partnership becomes most visible and most valuable. Each variety’s back panel carries a short narrative connecting the seed to a specific Irish place:
The Tipperary Turnip is linked to Prospect House in Waterford, where 19th-century estate records show land was devoted to root crops including varieties of swede stored for winter use.
Kilscanlon Spring Greens is linked to Adare Manor in Limerick, where large estates maintained walled kitchen gardens and cultivated farmland to supply year-round food for the household.
Alexanders Herb is linked to the 17th-century kitchen garden at Portumna Castle in Galway, where the fragrant Mediterranean herb — introduced to Ireland before 1500AD — thrived in sheltered walled garden conditions.
Each of these sites is identified as one of over 6,000 historic gardens and designed landscapes in the NIAH survey, with the QR code providing a direct link to the survey entry for buildingsofireland.ie.
This is exactly what good packaging design can do at its best. A seed packet is not just a vessel for seeds. In this case it is a link between a plant in your hand, a garden wall in Galway or Waterford, and a five-hundred-year thread of food culture in Ireland.
Practical Application
Final Outcome & Applications
Two varieties — Kilscanlon Spring Greens Kale and Tipperary Turnip Swede — were printed at 1,000 units each for distribution at Bloom Festival 2026 in Dublin. Alexanders Herb was completed as a full print-ready artwork and held for a future print run.
The envelopes were produced on a tight deadline, with Sam Roscoe at Designwest — whose expertise in heritage and editorial print is well established — managing the artwork preparation and technical print specification through to final approval by the ISSA team.
The finished packets perform as designed: at Bloom, where hundreds of exhibitors compete for attention, the natural kraft envelopes with hand-drawn botanical illustration and deep green two-colour print hold their own with quiet confidence.
Why Choose Designwest for Packaging and Print Design in Ireland
Packaging design at small format is a discipline where constraints sharpen rather than limit the work. The best seed packets, wine labels, and artisan food packaging in print design achieve their character precisely because they commit fully to a material and print approach rather than working against it.
Designwest has over 30 years of experience across print, packaging, and brochure design for Irish organisations. The team understands how to work with printing constraints rather than around them — and how to produce design that reflects the authentic character of a product and the organisations behind it.
For Irish food producers, heritage organisations, community groups, and anyone working with artisan print, Designwest delivers work that feels right in the hand.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is seed packet design?
Seed packet design is a specialised form of packaging design that must communicate botanical, practical, and brand information within a small, compact format. It typically includes the variety name, Latin species name, sowing and harvesting instructions, seed count, certification information, and the producer’s identity. Heritage seed packets like the ISSA series also include narrative content connecting the variety to its historical and cultural context.
What does two-colour print mean?
Two-colour print means the design is produced using exactly two ink colours rather than the full four-colour (CMYK) process used for standard full-colour printing. Two-colour print is more cost-effective, produces distinctive results on uncoated or natural stocks, and is particularly well suited to artisan, heritage, and craft products where authenticity of finish matters.
What is manilla brown kraft stock?
Manilla or kraft paper is a natural, unbleached paper stock with a characteristic warm brown colour and slightly textured surface. It is commonly used for envelopes, paper bags, and artisan packaging. When used as the substrate for two-colour print, the brown of the stock itself becomes a design element — in this case forming the background tone against which the forest green ink sits.
What is a wage packet envelope?
A wage packet envelope is a small, square, self-seal paper envelope originally used for paying workers in cash. The format — typically around 108mm square — is now widely used for seed packets, small promotional materials, and artisan product packaging. Its compact size, natural stock, and self-seal flap make it practical and characterful.
What is open-pollinated seed?
Open-pollinated seed is seed produced through natural pollination — by wind, insects, or other natural vectors — rather than through controlled or artificial hybridisation. Open-pollinated varieties can reproduce true to type when saved, making them essential for seed conservation and food heritage work. All Irish Seed Savers varieties are open-pollinated, grown and saved in Ireland for conservation purposes.
What is the National Built Heritage Service?
The National Built Heritage Service (NBHS) is an Irish government agency responsible for protecting and managing Ireland’s built heritage, including historic structures, designed landscapes, and architectural archives. The NBHS maintains the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH), which has identified over 6,000 historic gardens and designed landscapes across Ireland.
What is the NIAH Survey of Historic Gardens and Designed Landscapes?
The NIAH Survey of Historic Gardens and Designed Landscapes is a national survey conducted by the National Built Heritage Service to identify, record, and protect Ireland’s historic garden and designed landscape heritage. It has catalogued over 6,000 sites, ranging from the kitchen gardens of country estates to designed parklands and demesne landscapes. The survey is accessible via buildingsofireland.ie.
What is the Bloom Festival?
Bloom is Ireland’s largest garden and outdoor living festival, held annually in the Phoenix Park in Dublin over the June Bank Holiday weekend. It attracts tens of thousands of visitors and is a significant platform for Irish horticulture, food production, and garden design. Distributing seed packets at Bloom placed the ISSA/NBHS partnership in front of an audience of engaged, knowledgeable Irish garden and food enthusiasts.
What is a heritage seed variety?
A heritage seed variety is a traditional cultivar that has been grown, saved, and passed down over generations — often predating the commercial seed industry. Unlike modern hybrid varieties, heritage seeds are open-pollinated and can be saved true to type. They often have stronger connections to specific places, communities, and historical food cultures than commercially available varieties.
What is the Tipperary Turnip?
The Tipperary Turnip is a heritage cultivar of the swede (Brassica napus) that is hardy, well suited to the Irish climate, and noted for its delicate, sweet flavour. 19th-century estate records from Prospect House in Waterford show land was dedicated to growing root crops including swede varieties stored for winter. The Tipperary Turnip is maintained by Irish Seed Savers as part of Ireland’s food heritage.
What is Kilscanlon Spring Greens Kale?
Kilscanlon Spring Greens is an Irish heritage kale variety (Brassica oleracea var. acephala) that produces abundant, soft, tasty leaves. It is exceptionally hardy and provides reliable winter greens. The variety originates from Limerick, where estates such as Adare Manor maintained walled kitchen gardens and cultivated farmland for year-round food supply.
What is Alexanders Herb?
Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) is a fragrant Mediterranean herb said to be named after Alexander the Great and introduced to Ireland before 1500AD. Prized for its strong celery-like flavour, its young leaves were eaten in salads or as greens and it was valued for its medicinal properties. It is associated with sheltered walled garden environments, including the 17th-century kitchen garden at Portumna Castle in Galway.
Why was Alexanders Herb not printed for Bloom?
The Kilscanlon Spring Greens and Tipperary Turnip varieties were prioritised for the Bloom Festival print run at 1,000 units each. The Alexanders Herb design was completed in full as a print-ready artwork and is held for a future print run when quantities are required.
What is botanical illustration and why is it used for heritage seed packaging?
Botanical illustration is the precise, detailed drawing of plants for scientific or educational documentation. It predates photography and has a long tradition in seed catalogues, herbals, and horticultural publications. For heritage seed packaging, botanical illustration is both historically appropriate and practically superior to photography in a two-colour print context — the line drawings reproduce cleanly, read clearly at small scale, and communicate the authenticity and care of the product.
What is open-pollinated certification?
The ISSA seed packets carry Certified Organic IE-ORG-02 certification with License No. 5629-EU-Agriculture and display both the Irish Organic Association and EU Organic logos. This certification confirms the seeds are produced to organic standards, free from synthetic pesticides and fertilisers, and meet EU regulatory requirements for organic seed production.
What is the significance of the connection between seeds and historic Irish estates?
Many of Ireland’s heritage food varieties were cultivated in the walled kitchen gardens of country estates — the demesnes, manors, and great houses that dotted the Irish landscape from the 17th century onward. These kitchen gardens were centres of horticultural knowledge, and the varieties grown in them were often locally adapted over generations. Connecting a heritage seed variety to a specific estate preserves both the botanical and the cultural dimension of that heritage simultaneously.
Why does packaging design matter for heritage food products?
Good packaging design communicates the character and values of a product before a word is read. For heritage seed varieties distributed by a conservation organisation in partnership with a government heritage service, the packaging needed to look and feel like part of the same tradition it was describing — natural materials, restrained colour, botanical illustration, measured typography. A poorly designed or generic packet would undermine the credibility of the content it carries.
What is no-bleed printing and why does it matter for envelope design?
Bleed is the extension of artwork beyond the trim or edge of a print substrate, used to ensure colour or imagery runs right to the edge after cutting. When printing directly onto pre-made envelopes, bleed is not possible — the envelope is already formed, and the printing is applied within its boundaries. This requires all artwork to sit within a safe zone well inside the edges, which demands precise spatial discipline in the design.
Can Designwest design packaging for Irish food and heritage products?
Yes. Designwest has experience across packaging, labelling, and print design for Irish food producers, heritage organisations, and artisan brands. The team understands how to work within print and substrate constraints to produce design that reflects the authentic character of Irish products. Contact info@designwest.ie or call 094 938 2000 to discuss a project.
What is the difference between packaging design and brochure design?
Packaging design applies to three-dimensional or functional objects — envelopes, boxes, bags, labels, and wrappers — where the design must work within the physical constraints of the object itself, including material, format, print method, and functional requirements like sealing and handling. Brochure design applies to flat, multi-page publications. Both disciplines require strong typographic and layout skills but packaging design adds constraints of material, print method, and physical usability.
How does Designwest approach projects with tight print constraints?
Designwest treats print constraints as design parameters rather than limitations. The two-colour, no-bleed brief for the ISSA/NBHS envelopes produced a stronger, more characterful result than a full-colour brief might have. Understanding the relationship between design intention and print reality is a core part of how the Designwest team approaches every project.
How do I start a packaging design project with Designwest?
Contact the team at info@designwest.ie or call 094 938 2000 (Mayo) or 01 699 1777 (Dublin). A brief conversation about your product, format, print method, and distribution context is all that is needed to begin. Designwest will advise on the most appropriate approach and follow up with a proposal.
Can Designwest produce packaging design for distribution at national events and festivals?
Yes. The ISSA/NBHS seed packets are an example of packaging designed specifically for festival distribution — compact, distinctive, and produced to a tight deadline for a high-profile national event. Designwest works to event-driven timelines and delivers print-ready artwork on schedule.
What makes the ISSA/NBHS seed packet series distinctive as a design project?
The seed packet series achieves something rare in packaging design: every element — the material, the print method, the illustration style, the typography, the content — is genuinely consistent with the heritage and conservation character of the product. Nothing is borrowed or incongruous. The result is packaging that communicates authenticity without performing it.
Does Designwest work with Irish government bodies and state agencies?
Yes. Designwest has experience working with government departments, state agencies, and bodies funded by public sources, including the design of publications, brochures, reports, and communications materials that must meet specific branding, accessibility, and procurement requirements.
What are the social media channels referenced on the ISSA seed packet back panels?
The back panels include icons for Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky (the butterfly icon), alongside the website addresses for irishseedsavers.ie and buildingsofireland.ie, pointing readers to both organisations’ digital platforms for further information on heritage seeds and Ireland’s designed landscape heritage.
Call to Action
Working on packaging design, artisan print, or heritage product design in Ireland? Designwest produces work that reflects the authentic character of Irish products and organisations, from seed packets to annual reports. Speak with Designwest to explore how your project can be brought to life in print.
Contact the team at info@designwest.ie, call the Mayo office on 094 938 2000, or the Dublin office on 01 699 1777. See more of our print and brochure design work at designwest.ie.
Declan Foley is an Irish Creative Director with over 30 years of experience in graphic design, branding, print, and digital media. As Creative Director of Designwest Creatives Ltd, he leads design projects for Irish businesses, government departments, and organisations nationwide — from brand identity and publication design to large-scale print campaigns. Explore the portfolio at designwest.ie.
Two-colour print. Kraft manilla stock. Botanical line illustration. Heritage seeds with five-hundred-year stories on the back.
Designwest designed the seed packet envelope series for Irish Seed Savers Association and the National Built Heritage Service — produced for distribution at Bloom Festival 2026. Kilscanlon Spring Greens and Tipperary Turnip printed at 1,000 units each, with Alexanders Herb completed as artwork for a future run.
Sometimes the constraints are the design.
#PackagingDesign #PrintDesign #IrishDesign #DesignwestIreland #IrishSeedSavers #HeritageSeeds #BloomFestival
Designwest designed the heritage seed packet envelopes for Irish Seed Savers Association and the National Built Heritage Service, distributed at Bloom Festival 2026.
Two-colour print on kraft manilla envelopes — Kilscanlon Spring Greens Kale and Tipperary Turnip Swede. Each packet connects an Irish heritage seed to a specific historic estate in the NIAH survey. The kind of project that reminds you what print design is for.
See more at designwest.ie.
#Designwest #IrishDesign #PackagingDesign #IrishSeedSavers #BloomFestival
Heritage seeds. Historic Irish estates. Kraft paper and two-colour print.
Designwest designed the seed packet envelopes for Irish Seed Savers Association and the National Built Heritage Service — distributed at Bloom Festival 2026. Kilscanlon Spring Greens. Tipperary Turnip. Alexanders Herb. Each packet carries the story of a seed and the Irish place it came from.
Full project at designwest.ie — link in bio.
#graphicdesign #irishdesign #packagingdesign #printdesign #heritagedesign #irishheritage #seedpacket #irishseedsavers #bloomfestival #kraftpackaging #botanicalillustration #designireland #designwestireland #irishfood #artisanprint
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Designwest designed the heritage seed packet envelopes for Irish Seed Savers Association and the National Built Heritage Service, produced for distribution at Bloom Festival 2026 in Dublin. The project involved two-colour print design on 108mm square kraft manilla envelopes for three Irish heritage seed varieties — Kilscanlon Spring Greens Kale, Tipperary Turnip Swede, and Alexanders Herb. Two varieties were printed at 1,000 units each. For packaging design and print design in Ireland, contact Designwest at info@designwest.ie or call 094 938 2000.
