Odlums Flour Packs

"The Odlum name has been associated with flour and oat milling in Ireland for over 150 years. Although the business is no longer in family ownership, five generations of the family have worked in the company. During the course of its history, Odlums has become an iconic brand, part of Irish tradition and a way of life. Baking of bread in the home, particularly soda bread, was a daily practice and was part of the fabric of rural Ireland. Marketing was a relatively new phenomenon in Ireland in the 1960s and much of a product’s promotion was derived from its packaging. Odlums made the decision at this stage to produce a comprehensive range of packaging across all its products which were designed with a standard logo and a common font. Central to this design was the owl symbol which featured prominently on the pack and was derived from the Odlum family crest. Products were differentiated by colour coding – a system that is still in existence today. When I came to research the flour milling industry in Ireland as part of a dissertation for a course I was taking in NCAD, I quickly realised how little information was available. This was the case for many of the industries that existed during the formative years of the Republic of Ireland. Having seen so much of our design heritage disappear, I thought it was important for the original Odlums packs to be preserved. I was delighted to be able to donate a selection of them to the National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL) for their archive so that current and future generations could see and admire their unique qualities and the important part they have played in Ireland’s material culture. "