Matter Compostables

Based on a true love for the planet, Matter products were concepted and developed to provide high quality yet fully compostable replacements for everyday tableware, plastic storage bags and straws. Through years of trial and prototypes, we’ve developed our plant-based products to completely dissolve within 12 months after disposal or being placed in a compost bin – while putting valuable nutrients back into the soil. Our science takes sustainable plant trimmings that would normally be tossed out and turns them into super strong biopolymers that perform like plastic.

Matter Compostables came to Modern Impact to overhaul their brand identity and create new, eco-friendly packaging that mirrors the ingenuity of the product. The complete Matter line has been featured at Target since 2020 but was getting lost in the eco-aisle. The new designs needed to express the brand attributes, while standing out amongst the growing sea of eco-friendly and compostable products on the shelves.

Modern Impact reinvented the brand and created a new logo, color palette and design elements.

While the previous logo featured a leaf in the “a” to represent plant-based, the new logo design features the leave in the “M” to bring it to the forefront, and so the “M” can stand alone and still represent the brand.

The color palette – while taken from nature – strays from the typical greens and browns and utilizes a rich blue as the base of each design. Part of the Matter mission is to save our seas, so our blue represents that initiative.

Just as the products dissolve, so do some of the design features. Delicate illustrations take the place of overdone food photography, and the design treatments on the color waves “dissolve” into the calming blue background – representing how the products compost back into the earth. Each of the 16 products feature their own color from the brand palette, and of course all inks are soy-based and the packaging is 100% recyclable.

Offering a compostable product means a lot of certifications on your packaging (e.g., BPI and TUV badges) which makes going for a minimalist, modern and simplistic look quite the effort. Since the product itself is made only from plants, the simplistic packaging design reflects this idea. Another goal of the design is to inform the consumer that they are not sacrificing quality and durability just because the products compost. We accomplished this by the use of callouts on various products, including “split resistant”, “extra sturdy”, “leak-proof” and “microwave safe”.

Launched in Spring 2022 at all Target stores, the new Matter Compostable designs continue to disrupt the industry by showing a brighter side of earth-friendly packaging. The new Matter packaging not only works on an individual level, but also as a group. Between innovative material, intelligent design, and eco-friendly packaging, Matter is changing the way the world thinks about single-use-plastics.