PROCESS
JOURNAL
ART 575: PACKAGING KYLAR WARE
Kylar Ware ART 575: Packaging Professor Leslie Friesen Fall 2016
Table of Contents I. Household Item
»» What is Packaging? »» Research »» More Research »» Personas »» Semantics Differential Scale »» Creative Brief »» Concept Sketches »» Composing »» Client Presentation & Dieline »» Final Product!
II. Horse Dewormer »» Stuart & Associates Field Trip »» Creative Brief »» So, Where Do You Start? »» Time to Sketch »» Collaborations »» The Process »» Final Product »» Return to Stuart & Associates
III. Ethnic Beverage »» Research »» Visual Inventory »» Mood Board »» Brand Position »» Sketches »» Feedback »» Creating a Brand »» Final Layout »» Class Critique »» Final Edits
Closing Thoughts Page |3
HOUSEHOLD
ITEM
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Ice-CreamMuseum-Gansevoort-Scoop-Tickets-MeatpackingDistrict-386321911.html
What is Packaging? pack·ag·ing noun •materials used to wrap or protect goods. synonyms:wrapping, wrappers, packing, covering •the business or process of packing goods. the presentation of a person, product, or action in a particular way. (Definition provided by Google definitions)
Packaging. We’re surrounded by it everyday, yet how many of us really take the time to understand it? It’s how a company displays their product in stores of course, but at a second glance, there is so much more to it than that. A package needs to stand out among the products that surround it, as well as showcase the best qualities of the product it contains. Selling products is such a competitive field, you don’t have very much time to attract the consumer’s attention and convince them that your product is the one they need to purchase. Not only do package designers need to take all of that into account, but the packaging also needs to be functional and consumer friendly.
Some considerations that need to be addressed when designing packaging are: »» Audience »» What type of store the product will be sold in »» Size »» What tone you are going for? »» User efficiency »» Materials »» Market »» Presence »» Communication of information about the product »» Production cost to manufacturer »» Budget »» Connotation »» Denotation »» Expression »» How it entices and inspires the user
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Guest Speaker Notes
We had a guest speaker from Scoppechio, an advertising agency in Louisville, come in to talk to our class about packaging.
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Research Category/Context So how do you research packaging? Well, the best way is to go to a store and look around. We’re all consumers, so our own experiences at the store can count as valid research. Therefore, I found myself wandering around Walmart one afternoon with my phone out, taking pictures of household items on the shelves. After getting plenty of weird looks, I ended up choosing to photograph different brands of the same products so that I would be comparing apples to apples, so to speak. We were told to find products that were made to be hung up, so I eventually wound up in the kitchen aisle staring at rows upon rows of spatulas, spoons, and pizza cutters. The first thing I noticed is that all of the products in the aisle used very similar color palettes in their packaging. The result of that? It was difficult for any certain brand
to stand out. Obviously these package designers had not done their research very well. The packaging I liked the best was the Oneida brand pizza cutter because it stood out the most to me. It still used red as a main color, however instead of using a grey or white background, they used black and red, which caused the large white text to stand out. Also, instead of trying to include too many elements, such as photos, they allowed the utensil to speak for itself and simply used a textured background. Some of the others blended into the background too much and did not draw my eye at all. The first step of getting someone to buy your product is to get them to notice it, so ensuring that your product stands out on the shelf is extremely important.
This Oneida packaging isn’t too bad. The colors are bold and stand out well against the shelf and the other products around.
These packages are rather boring. Nothing about them causes them to stand out among the crowd. They use bland colors and generic photos of pizzas. We know it’s a pizza cutter, is it really necessary to take up room on the front of such a small package with a photo of someone cutting pizza? You don’t have much real estate in packaging, it is important to ensure what you are displaying is pertinent information. Too much information on the front of a package also clutters the design and makes it difficult to catch the consumer’s attention.
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More research! Sustainability/Low Impact My next job was to observe packaging in a different light. Instead of only looking at the aesthetics of the packaging I needed to look at the environmental impact of the materials used. Again, I tried to stick to the same type of product and find a good and bad example. I came across shower curtain sets that were hanging and two different ways to package them. Each set came with the exact same materials,
however the first example used a lot of cardboard to enclose the top and to hang the product up. The second option takes a much more environmentally friendly approach and simple wrapped a thin piece of paper around the entire set. Not only does the second option use less materials, but I also think that it just looks cleaner than the bulky cardboard.
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Personas A persona is basically your target audience on steroids. Instead of just saying, “I’m targeting 40 year old women of the middle class” you can say, “I’m targeting Barb.” Who is Barb? Well, Barb is made up. Essentially creating a persona is creating a person who would fit into the audience you are targeting, only you take it a step further. You create a story for them, a life, including where they shop, how many kids they have, their backstory, as much as you want. It’s a way to allow yourself to give a face to your target audience, instead of just having this vague notion of who they are. My group was assigned a widowed white male between the ages of 45-54 years old for the starting point of our persona. From there, we decided that
his name would be Samuel James Piner and that his wife had died 10 years prior in an automobile accident. Because of this, Sam only drives the safest cars. He also has 2 kids, a 15 year old boy and a 12 year old girl and they live in Cincinnati, Ohio. Sam works as a doctor in the Emergency Room. He transferred to the ER after his wife’s accident because he wanted to do everything in his power to make sure that no one else had to experience what he had been through. He attended college at Vanderbilt University. We also decided that Sam was a Starbucks guy, and that he often fed his family with Panera, Panda Express, and Mcallisters because he worked late so often and his kids were typically busy with after school clubs and sports.
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Semantics Differential Scale A semantics differential scale is a rating scale designed to measure the connotative meaning of objects, events, and concepts. The connotations are used to derive the attitude towards the given object, event or concept. So what does that mean? Well, it means that you can take any two items and compare them using
a semantics differential scale, or you can compare where the product is now, to what you are trying to accomplish with a redesign. You simply choose different attributes that can be used to describe the product and then place a dot on the scale where you think the product falls.
K itchen A id Ice Cream Scoop Packaging High End
Low End
Unique
Basic
Well Made Eco-friendly
Poor Quality Environmentally Irresponsible
New Old
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Creative Brief Ice Cream Scoop Packaging Name:
Kylar Ware
Client:
Kitchen Aid
Date:
September 6th, 2016
Objective:
Redesign the packaging for the Kitchen Aid Ice Cream Scoop to make it more visually interesting as well as low impact in order to increase sales and consumer interest in the brand.
Target Audience:
Target audience for the redesign is middle aged women with kids of a middle to upper class income. Probably around 20-35 years of age.
Current Position:
The current packaging for this product is boring and lifeless. It gives the impression that the company doesn’t care enough about its product to make the packaging look nice which fosters indifference or even negativity in the consumer towards the brand.
Re-Position:
Fun, energetic packaging that stands out among the rest and grabs the consumer’s attention and presents the product as reliable and well made.
Creative briefs are a way to map out exactly what you are trying to accomplish with a project. For people like me they are especially helpful because at a glance they can remind me who I am targeting, what they purpose of the redesign is for, etc. Creative Briefs are also important to ensure that you and the client are on the same page about things. If you make decisions based upon the creative brief you are more likely to come up with a successful solution. Decisions based on the creative brief are also
decisions that you can defend and explain why you made them. I have learned that having a reason for the decisions you make as a designer is very important. For this project I decided to redesign the packaging for Kitchen Aid Ice Cream Scoops. The current packaging for them is quite horrid. It utilizes a lot of unneeded cardboard and instead of featuring a picture of something normal, like ice cream, there is a picture of peppers and a tomato, as if we’re going to scoop vegetables with our ice cream scoop?
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Concept Sketches If there is one thing I have learned since beginning the Graphic Design program, it is the importance of sketching. Sketching is something that I need to remember to always do before beginning a project because it allows you to generate more unique ideas more quickly than you ever could by starting your brainstorming process on a computer. Computers have a way of making us feel as though things need to be perfect, however sketches are meant to be loose, they’re all about the idea. I began this project by sketching out as many ways as I
could think of in order to minimize the environmental impact of my packaging as well as making the scoop still look classy, yet still allowing the consumer to see that it is fun and enjoyable to have. I ended up choosing to create a tag shaped like an ice cream cone. The scoop would then hang by it’s own handle from the shelf and the tag would use the least amount of materials possible while still looking clean and having all of the necessary information about the product.
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Composing
As you can see my packaging went through quite a few stages before I decided on which direction I wanted to take my ice cream illustrator. Instead of just making the tag double sided I decided to make it a little booklet that would fold open in order to list the features of the product. I chose not to have the logo on the front of the ice cream cone because the ice cream scoop itself already displays the Kitchen Aid logo on the front of the handle.
Dishwasher safe • Easy to grip handle • Specially shaped scoop • Convenient hanging storage
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Client Presentation & Dieline For my client presentation, I actually took some time to reevaluate my target audience and what I was trying to accomplish with my redesign. I realized that because I was redesigning a Kitchen Aid brand ice cream scoop, I had failed to acknowledge when first writing my brief that Kitchen Aid already had a target audience. Therefore, I scrapped targeting my redesign towards a younger crowd and instead focused on targeting middle to upper class mothers with children. One of Kitchen
http://hubpages.com/living/Pink-Appliances
Aid’s draws is that their appliances come in many different colors that span all of their appliances. This new target audience would be much more likely to care about matching their appliances than a younger audience. Therefore I opted to update the illustration of the ice cream cone to make it more sophisticated. I also decided that the color of the tag would change to match the color of the ice cream scoop in order to emphasize the different colors available.
Dishwasher safe • Easy to grip handle • Specially shaped scoop • Convenient hanging storage
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Final Product! So here it is! My final product! As aforementioned, the colors of the tag will match the colors of the scoop’s handles in order to emphasize the line of colors that are available in the Kitchen Aid appliances. I feel like my re-design is successful in a number of ways that the original design is not. Not only is my design more eco-friendly, but it will also cost less to produce, and attract more attention on the shelf due to it’s unconventional packaging and colorful presence.
Consumer Feedback
I asked a few people around my office who are in and around my target age group and got their feedback about my package design. On average, they agreed that my
packaging made the product feel more high end, between a 4 and a 5 on the scale. They also said that the packaging was about a 3 or maybe a 4 on the scale from basic to unique. They placed my packaging at about a 4 on the scale of poor quality to high quality, and finally they decided that the size and minimalist quality of my packaging made it a 5 on the ecofriendly scale. Many claimed that if they needed to buy a new ice cream scoop that they would definitely be drawn to mine because of it’s cute, yet clean design. Also, they enjoyed that my design felt both reminiscent of the old days while still being modern and fun and they also enjoyed the fact that everything on the packaging was necessary and that there was not any superfluous information cluttering the design.
Dishwasher safe • Easy to grip handle • Specially shaped scoop • Convenient hanging storage
Dishwasher safe • Easy to grip handle • Specially shaped scoop • Convenient hanging storage
Dishwasher safe • Easy to grip handle • Specially shaped scoop • Convenient hanging storage
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HORSE
DEWORMER
Stewart & Associates Field Trip To kickstart our next project our class took a field trip to Stewart & Associates, a design firm here in Louisville. Stewart & Associates designs for, well, basically everything it seems. They operate on a referral basis, but they are so good at what they do that they have businesses from all over the country come to them for work. One thing that they do a lot of projects for is the equine industry, for instance the packaging of horse deworming products. This is where our next project comes in. Our task is to redesign the face of a horse deworming product. We can choose any brand to redesign, and at the end of the project we will return to Stewart and Associates in order to evaluate our work. They have an area of their office set up to look like a store so that we can place our products on the shelf and see how they hold up. I really enjoyed going to Stewart and Associates. I love that I had the opportunity to see a design agency on the inside and
the chance to talk to people who design for a living. I feel like their insight and advice is invaluable and while I may not be the greatest at it, I try to take their advice and implement it in my work the best that I can. One thing that Dan stressed was his emphasis on ideas and thinking. You may not have the best technical knowledge, but if you are a good thinker you are valuable. He also discussed the importance of researching before you begin a product. You cannot design for something without knowing about it. Not only do I enjoy listening to the talks given by the designers, but just seeing the work spaces that they work in is inspiring. Their building is this gorgeous old schoolhouse. It was the first school building for African American kids. There are the original chalkboards all over the place and these tall doorways and it is just so beautiful. They also remodeled the top floor into an apartment where employees occasionally stay.
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Creative Brief Horse Dewormer Name:
Kylar Ware
Client:
Exodus Horse Dewormer
Date:
October 13th, 2016
Product Background:
Exodus Paste horse wormer contains pyrantel pamoate for removal and control of mature infections of large and small strongyles, pinworms and roundworms in horses and ponies. Each 1-dose syringe treats up to 1200 lbs. body weight. Exodus is safe for use in foals, pregnant mares and stallions. Palatable apple flavor.
Target Audience:
The packaging for this product should target the “every horse”. Being too specific about breeds or making the packaging too masculine or feminine should be avoided. We want to target both the “cowboys” and “sissies in tight pants” of the equine industry.
Desired Brand Attributes: »» Clean »» Professional »» Family/User Friendly »» Approachable
Project Goals:
The goal of this project is to redesign the packaging of this product in order to make it more visually interesting. We want to take what is typically thought to be a boring product and make it exciting and “sexier”. The packaging does not have to be boring just because the product may be. Other goals include being legible, noticeable, and unique, as well as easy for the consumer to glean information from and pick out from the crowd. We also want to ensure that the compound is easily identified on the package.
Here are the brands that my package would be shelved alongside, as well as the original packaging for Exodus, the brand that I am redesigning
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So, Where Do You Start? Seeing as how I have never owned a horse and therefore have never had to even think about deworming one, a good place for me to begin this project was to research the topic a little more. Knowing what is inside the box I am designing for is always a good idea. Thanks to the wonderful resource that is the internet along with the notes that I took at Stewart & Associates, here is what I found: »» Horse Dewormers are sometimes referred to as horse wormers. »» Worms are gastrointestinal parasites that come in many forms and can affect your horse throughout their parasitic life cycle. »» The parasites thrive in pastures where your horse grazes, exercises, and plays. »» Which type of wormer used
depends on age, location, season, travel, pasture load, and whether the horse is in contact with other animals or not. »» Horse Wormers help remove large and small strongyles, pinworms, ascarids, hairworms, large mouth stomach worms, lungworms, intestinal threadworms and bots from your horse with an assortment of effective horse wormers. »» Wormers, such as daily feed through and rotational worming kits, also help reduce the chance of re-infection by decreasing the number of worm larvae in the horse’s feces and subsequently, the pasture.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/pic/article.cfm?articleid=1569 http://www.horse.com/wormers/551/
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Time to Sketch!
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Collaborations We took an hour out of our time during this project (I know, an entire hour), and worked on some one else’s design. There were a few benefits to this little side project. One, I got to stop looking at my own work for a little bit, which was a welcome break. I also got to delve into the approach that someone else had taken to the same project, and I ended up seeing where someone else took my own design. We drew out of a hat to decide whose file we would work on and I ended up drawing out Carolina’s name. She had a couple different directions she had started, so I decided to work on the one that the class had seen the most potential in. Even though I wasn’t working on her original document, so anything I changed wouldn’t have affected her files, I think there is still this fear I have of messing up someone else’s work. Therefore, I didn’t
push myself too far from what she already had. If we did this exercise again I would like to spend more time on it and try to expand more on their idea rather than simply offering different variations of the same idea. I ended up sending her back three different iterations. Aaron drew out my name and sent me back one iteration of my original design. He ended up changing the font and adding in some angled shapes. He also added in the rest of the text for the front of the package that I had not gotten to yet. I actually really liked the type treatment he created for the extra information, however I had already begun to edit my design before I saw what he had been working on. It is funny though that we both chose to experiment with the angle of the “X” in Exodus, just in slightly different ways.
Carolina’s Design
equimax
Equine Dewormer Paste Anthelmintic / Boticide 0.225 oz (6.42g)
equimax equimax
Equine Dewormer Paste Anthelmintic / Boticide Equine 0.225 ozDewormer (6.42g) Equine Dewormer Paste Paste Anthelmintic / Boticide Anthelmintic / Boticide 0.225 oz (6.42g) 0.225 oz (6.42g)
(ivermectin 1.87% / praziquantel 14.03%)
My Edits
(ivermectin 1.87% / praziquantel 14.03%)
(ivermectin (ivermectin 1.87% 1.87% // praziquantel praziquantel 14.03%) 14.03%)
equimax equimax
Equine Dewormer Paste Anthelmintic / Boticide Equine 0.225 ozDewormer (6.42g) Equine Dewormer Paste Paste Anthelmintic / Boticide Anthelmintic / Boticide 0.225 oz (6.42g) 0.225 oz (6.42g)
equimax equimax
Equine Dewormer Paste Anthelmintic / Boticide Equine Dewormer Equine 0.225 ozDewormer (6.42g) Paste Paste Anthelmintic / Boticide Anthelmintic / Boticide 0.225 oz (6.42g) 0.225 oz (6.42g)
(ivermectin 1.87% / praziquantel 14.03%)
(ivermectin (ivermectin 1.87% 1.87% // praziquantel praziquantel 14.03%) 14.03%)
(ivermectin 1.87% / praziquantel 14.03%)
(ivermectin (ivermectin 1.87% 1.87% // praziquantel praziquantel 14.03%) 14.03%)
My Original Design
Aaron’s Edits
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The Process Designs certainly don’t ever turn out perfectly on the first try. I went through a lot of different iterations before I began to find a direction that worked. Shown to the right are just a few of the stages my design went through before I arrived at my final piece. As you can see, I chose only one of my initial designs to continue on with. After presenting my first round of digital sketches to the class I discovered that what was working best was a just a single horse as well as the teal color.
From there I decided to play with the typography and ended up customizing an “X” so that I could follow the angle it created. After that decision, my typographic treatment became more important than my sketch, which was my original idea. At first, I also tried to incorporate too many rules that just weren’t necessary. After another round of advice I nixed the extra white rules and the entire design began to look much cleaner.
Caterpillar...
...to Butterfly!
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Final Product! After many trials this is what I came up with as my final product! Overall, I am very happy with my final design. I think I still need to work on making the two halves of my box cohesive, however I think that I have come a long way as a designer. Last semester I would not have been able to come up with this quality of a design, especially in the time we had to work on this particular project. This project definitely presented us with some challenges. We had to take something that we not only knew nothing about, but
that is pretty boring in general, and make it interesting. We also had to ensure that it fit in with the products it would be surrounded by, while standing out to the consumer at the same time. That’s not an easy task. When we came into class with our assembled boxes we did an activity where we voted on which boxes in each category we felt were the best. Of the boxes in my category mine fell evenly in the middle. I think that with a few more adjustments I could make mine even better.
Before
After
odus Equine Dewormer / Pyrantel Pamoate Net Wt. 23.6 g (0.83 oz)
odus
Equine Dewormer / Pyrantel Pamoate
Net Wt. 23.6 g (0.83 oz)
sudo
odus
etaomaP letnaryP / remroweD e n i u q E
Equine Dewormer / Pyrantel Pamoate
)zo 38.0( g 6.32 .tW teN
sudo
etaomaP letnaryP / remroweD e n i u q E
Net Wt. 23.6 g (0.83 oz)
)zo 38.0( g 6.32 .tW teN
Net Wt. 23.6 g (0.83 oz)
odus
Equine Dewormer / Pyrantel Pamoate
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Return to Stewart & Associates To officially bring our second project to a close, our class took a return trip to Stewart & Associates with our newly designed and mocked-up packages in hand. Our main goal for our second trip was to get feedback from Dan on how our redesigns would hold up in the real world, but it wasn’t all work. Dan graciously bought us all lunch, so we had a pizza party in the loft upstairs before gathering in a room on the second floor. Before Dan started our critique we organized our boxes by brand next to the original designs. After surveying our designs for a few moments he declared that none of us had failed and that we would all keep our job. So that was a relief. He then went through and pulled out the boxes which stood out to him the most. “I like this one,” he said as he flung one to the side, “I like this one, annnnnnnnnd I like this one, but I’m not sure why”. The latter was, to my surprise, about my design. He then discussed what was working for him and what was not. Some had horses that were too specific, some were too western looking, some were just too red. After he critiqued our work for awhile, he decided he would call upon a second opinion.
That second opinion came in the form of his wife, who also works at the firm. “She’s the scary one,” he informed us as we were waiting for her to arrive. “She won’t hesitate to tell you if your design is crap”. So we waited with baited breath to see who would get chewed out. Fortunately, everything was fine. His wife had little prior knowledge of what our assignment was, so it took her a moment to get started. She took a sightly different approach and ranked the designs in each category. Some of her choices were similar to Dan’s, but some differed slightly. My box was only one of two in my category, but she did rank mine first, which was nice. Overall, feedback on my design was pretty good. I had chosen a good color, and Dan seemed to really like my typographic treatment. The left half of my box was a win. My horse drawing on the other hand did not pass inspection. My horse was considered fat and too specific, but that’s an easy fix. After looking at it for so long, I think my next edits will be to try a more silhouetted shape of a horse. I think that may help to tie the halves of my package together. I am still very pleased with how this project came together for me.
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ETHNIC
BEVERAGE
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Research Our final project was to create or redesign an ethnic condiment or beverage. We were given 6 different cuisines to choose from: Moroccan, Thai, Indian, Greek, Caribbean, and Japanese. While each of them seemed interesting and fun to work with, I decided to do Caribbean because it was the only one I have actually been to in person. I had visited Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and Cozumel Mexico last year on a cruise. Just like the other two projects, we began our ethnic condiment/beverage project with research. This time, instead of solely combing the internet for information however, we took a little field trip to the art library. We did an activity there where we got into groups and first wrote down big ideas we could research for each culture. Then, we wrote down more specific words, and with each round even more specified topics. Eventually we ended up with sheets full of key words to search in the library’s database in order to provide us with better sources. It was a great way to really focus in
on some important things for the cultures we had chosen to focus on. While it was nice to get our heads out of our laptops for awhile, the internet is still a valuable source, so we also did research by finding photos for our mood boards depicting the feel we wanted our product to have. We also created visual inventories showing what types of products our product would be shelved alongside at the store. I went to Kroger and photographed the soda isle in order to get a better idea of what was actually out there in addition to searching online. I was actually surprised at the amount of good designs that are out there for different types of sodas. Jones Sodas, Sky Valley Sodas, even Kroger’s own Private Selection has stepped up its game considerably. I even ended up buying a cream soda that I didn’t need because I liked the packaging. I did notice that most of the colors in the Kroger aisle seemed to look a little dark, so using bright colors would help my brand stand out.
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VISUAL
INVENTORY
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MOOD BOARD
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Brand Position After researching, I had to determine what I wanted my brand to feel like. Did I want it to be snobby and upscale? Gourmet? Sophisticated? Historic? I decided to try and make my product feel fun and relaxed, much like my experience in the Caribbean was. I definitely wanted it to be
approachable to many different types of people. I didn’t want to target kids specifically, but rather create a packaging that would be appealing to a younger audience while avoiding alienating the older crowd. Anyone can enjoy a nice tropical drink every now and then.
Caribbean Fruit Flavored Soda Gourmet
Average
Historic
Modern
Sophisticated
Fun
Upscale
Generic
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Sketches After researching, it was time for sketches! We even did an activity in class to help generate more ideas. Leslie would give us a word, for example “small�, and we would have to sketch a design for our product that was small. We were only given a certain amount of time to sketch for each prompt, so it was all about getting any and every idea down on paper. It definitely helped me to generate more ideas, even though all of them weren’t exactly quality. For every few bad ideas,
there was at least one pretty good one! After that, we each chose about three sketches to present to the class in order to get some feedback before we went digital with our designs. I presented the three designs below. I overwhelmingly got the best reaction from the first design (on the left), so I decided to head in that direction when designing my bottles.
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Feedback I typically choose to create my own illustrations for my work as opposed to using photos because I like not having to worry about where my images come from. However, due to time constraints, that usually means a lot of my illustrations end up looking very similar for my designs. My quick, sketchy line art style is easy to do and works in a lot of different situations. When I told Leslie I planned on illustrating this project she told me I was unallowed to use the same style. Therefore, I decided to drag all of my watercolors to class to paint during my lunch break one day. It was time for our next round of feedback, and while most people
already had digital designs going, I only had the beginnings of my illustrations. Regardless, I still got some good feedback on them through our “round robin written review�, which I have put on the next spread. Many of the comments were really positive. I mostly received advice to add ink lines on top of my illustrations, which I had planned on doing originally, but ran out of time before the critique. After the critique I brought my images into Photoshop and began using my tablet to draw some outlines on top of them to further define the fruit and flowers. I also had a lot of fun editing the colors and making things brighter in Photoshop.
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COCONUT
CREAM 12 FL OZ/355 ML
PINEAPPLE PASSIONFRUIT 12 FL OZ/355 ML
STRAWBERRY
GUAVA 12 FL OZ/355 ML
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Creating a Brand Instead of just redesigning an existing brand of Caribbean fruit sodas, I decided to create my own little company. Therefore, I spent
some time brainstorming a good name, as well as coming up with a believable logo.
PALM SODA
PALM SODA
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Final Layout It took a lot of moving things around and redrawing my white boxes to get everything to fit nicely on my labels. I had originally forgotten to plan for a spot to put my brand logo, so at the last minute I had to figure out a new layout. Ideally, if this were a real product, I would have my labels printed on a clear with white ink where the boxes are, however for this project I was lacking those capabilities. Therefore, as my plan B, I decided to create a box that encompassed most of the design, and then had many of the elements pop out of the box so that the label still had a unique shape and there was not too much white space.
I also had to tackle creating the backs of my bottles where the Nutrition facts would be displayed. I decided that I also wanted to include a pattern on the opposite side of the nutrition facts so that they would show through the bottle and be revealed even more as the soda was being drunk. I made the patterns out of the original watercolor designs I created. In the future, when I take this project event further, I would really like to play around with the patterns even more. Perhaps even creating new watercolor content instead of just reusing what I already had for my labels.
COCONUT
CREAM 12 FL OZ/355 ML naturally flavored fruit soda
PINEAPPLE PASSIONFRUIT 12 FL OZ/355 ML
naturally flavored fruit soda
STRAWBERRY
GUAVA 12 FL OZ/355 ML
naturally flavored fruit soda
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Class Critique On the day of our class critique I had all of my labels cut and printed out and my repurposed Jones soda bottles ready to go. I had emptied out two of the bottles so that I could fill them with colored water, however one of the sodas was already cream soda flavored, so I left the soda in it for the coconut cream flavor. We went around the room and each took a turn presenting our work alongside our mood boards in order to see how well we
represented our country or region. The sophomore class also popped over to take a look at our work and lucky me, I got to present to not only my class, but the sophomores as well. Despite being nervous about presenting in front of about 40 people, I think in general I got very positive reactions to my work. In fact, the main negative comments I received were in response to the color of the water inside the bottles.
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Final Edits I had been so busy focusing on what I wanted my labels to look like that I hadn’t put much thought into what colors I wanted the liquid inside of the bottles to be. I originally wanted the pineapple passionfruit flavor to be a yellow color, however the food coloring I had ended up making a weird orangey yellow that wasn’t very appetizing, so I went ahead and pushed it more towards being orange. Looking at them grouped together, I decided that leaving the coconut cream flavor clear made
it look separate from the brighter colored flavors. Therefore, I decided not to photograph my bottles directly after our class critique and instead went home and made some final adjustments. I cleaned up the back labels and changed the colors inside of my bottles. I toned down the pink, picked up a better shade of yellow food coloring, and decided to make the coconut cream flavor blue instead of clear. I think that with these changes they look much more appetizing as well as cohesive.
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Closing Thoughts Freshman year after completing my first design class, ART 205, and before I even knew if I would be accepted into the program I went to my first Portfolio Day. I remember walking into the Cressman Center and being blown away by the work the seniors had sitting on their tables. There was no way I would ever create things that beautiful, right? I was especially in awe of all of the packaging that I saw. It was so impressive to see these physical things that the students made. Things that you could pick up and hold. One that stood out to me in particular was Josie Degler’s “Bumble Booze”. It was the prettiest and most clever design I had ever seen. Since then, and especially after getting the confirmation that I was actually in the program, I have been excited to take packaging. Now that I have officially
completed my semester in packaging, I can say that it was quite different than I expected. There is so much thought that has to go into packaging. The size of the barcode, the size of the nutrition facts, the size of the label itself, the functionality of your package, the cost efficiency of your materials, etc etc etc. I really enjoyed working through a lot of the problems that packaging required me to tackle, however. My favorite project was obviously the Ethnic Beverage project, however I also weirdly enjoyed dealing with the challenges that the Horse Deworming package faced me with. Overall, I am very proud of the work that I have produced in this class, and I hope to expand on these projects, especially my Palm Sodas, so that perhaps I can inspire a freshman at my portfolio day.
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