Mother Design Strips Back M&S Packaging Across Home and Lingerie

Mother Design has rebuilt Marks & Spencer's packaging system for thousands of Home and Lingerie products, stripping back the retailer's sub-brands, range names, claims and competing hierarchies.

The branding and design studio, part of the Mother creative agency, avoided the obvious reference points. Partner Kirsty Minns said: "We didn't really look to adjacent retailers like Zara or H&M for inspiration. The challenge at M&S is of a very different scale and complexity. Instead, we looked much more broadly at the long history of information design, and how typography, grids, hierarchy and structure have been used to make complex systems feel simple and intuitive."

Why did M&S need a new system?

The brief had three aims:

• Make the packaging feel as stylish as the M&S brand
• Strengthen the role of the M&S core brand across these products
• Make ranges easier to navigate in an increasingly self-service retail environment, where packaging has to work harder to support purchase decisions

Creative director Jo Tulej framed the redesign as a positioning move, not a trend response. "The redesign was instead about responding to M&S's own brand and customer needs," she said. "Home is increasingly viewed as an extension of our personal style, and you can see that not only in buying habits but also in the way brands are turning up in this space, be that fashion brands like Zara and H&M, or smaller brands like Hay and Ferm Living. Customers are expecting home brands to bring that desirability and style confidence into the experience. So the redesign of the packaging not only needed to help people buy, but also position M&S in a more confident, style-oriented way."

M&S did not provide recent sales figures for home and lingerie.

What changes in typography and hierarchy?

The studio retained the brand's MS London typeface, previously used in inconsistent weights and hierarchies, and created a unified system across three weights. "We increased the tracking to ensure everything felt more refined and visually consistent," Tulej said.

The system standardises on caps for product titles and sentence case for benefits and body copy, improving legibility at small sizes.

The new element is MS London Geo, a numeral set crafted by Mother Design because "the pre-existing one didn't lend itself to being used at scale," Tulej added. "It's optimised for use at large scale, which felt more elevated, contemporary and geometric. Design-wise, it was heavily informed by MS London and classic British type design to ensure they worked well together." Monotype, which originally built MS London, developed the final typeface.

How does the packaging work on shelf?

In Home, a hierarchy separates front- and back-of-pack information. A consistent "benefits grid" and the MS London Geo numerals help shoppers identify key product features, pack contents and sizing at a glance.

The monochrome palette, built around M&S black and white, is intended for sharper shelf presence, with colour-coded bedding size stickers aiding navigation. Some products have moved from plastic bags into premium-style boxes. Duvets now come in reusable cotton bags. The tone of voice has shifted too, with what the team calls tongue-in-cheek levity in Home.

Lingerie takes a different approach. The collection uses natural light and relaxed styling, with warm whites and charcoal tones. A colour-coded sizing system brings all sizes into a single range, ending the separation of larger cup sizes into a standalone sub-brand. The tone here is a relaxed, guiding confidence.

What happens next?

Results remain unmeasured. "As it has only just started rolling out, it's too early to know results beyond anecdotal positive feedback from M&S colleagues and customers," said Mother Design partner Kathryn Jubrail.

The Mother "family" has worked with M&S since 2023, driving the retailer's visual aesthetic, style credentials and flagship fashion campaigns, including M&S's first-ever runway show in Ibiza for the summer 2026 collection.

The system will extend to other categories, but not Food, since Mother's remit covers only Fashion, Home and Beauty. Jubrail said: "Our task was to establish the foundational design system across the two categories that have the highest packaging demands (Home and Lingerie), so that internal teams can roll it out across the other business units, such as Kids."