MAUSELLA

Packaging design for Comté combines tradition with a subtle sense of humor. Inspired by cheese-aging cellars, the design uses shape, color, and a hidden mouse detail to reflect the product’s character, history, and flavor variations.

Curator’s Note

The cleverest move is the decision to make the die-cut holes serve two functions simultaneously. They're a visual reference to the cheese's characteristic eyes, and they're also product windows. Most packaging treats those as separate design problems; Mousella solves both with the same cut. The result is a box that doesn't need to tell you what's inside because it's already showing you.

The four-color range system also deserves attention. Green, yellow, blue, and orange is an unusually bold palette for a category that defaults to kraft brown, cream, and burgundy. It signals variety without resorting to flavor-descriptor language on the front face... the color does that work instead, keeping the front panel clean enough for the oversized vertical logotype to own it completely.

The hidden mouse detail is worth reading carefully as a structural choice, not just a personality flourish. Comté is a long-aged cheese with a serious AOC heritage, and the packaging leans into that — "Affinage dans des caves en pierre," "Estd. 1875." The mouse introduces levity without undercutting that credibility, precisely because it's hidden rather than announced. It rewards the buyer who looks closely, which is a different relationship than a mascot printed front-and-center.

Written by Derrick Lin, POTW curator

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