Passenger Casestudy

CASE STUDY Junior Design Studio Rush Project Designed by Lina Than

GETTING STARTED

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Visual Language Creative Brief To start off with this logo and packaging design, we were introduced to “The Infantree.” They are a local design company that is centered around the idea of collaboration and making good work. From the group meeting we had with the owners, we learned about their process and the steps they take to get to the final outcome. This Case Study for the Passenger Logo and K-Cup design will do the same thing and show the steps I took to get to the final outcome within a week.

The first step in going about this project was to read over their creative brief.

Passenger has been offered a collaboration with Keurig who would love to sell Passenger products to the public. The issue is that they are “coffee snobs” and selling their product to a general consumer level audience does not fit within their image. Before trying to find a solution to this problem we can take a look at their visual language and really get a feel for the company which will help us in solving the problem and building our own moodboards.

GETTING STARTED

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Moodboard Researching Moodboard are really important in trying to further understand the company and a great starting point to researching. Here is where I started to decide how to go about solving their issue on rebranding for a general audience.

My moodboard still evokes the feeling and style that was in Infantree’s visual language, but mine feels a bit more consumer-ish.

My direction for this design was to focus on this “premium” brand in comparison to other K-Cup brands. So while the K-Cups might be more expensive than their competitors, I am focusing on the idea of quality vs. quantity. Instead of fighting for the attention, by leveling them above others it keeps their “coffee snob” reputation safe and if anything, a bit more intriguing.

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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Thumbnails Right off the bat, I went for the idea of simplicity because simple things are always more expensive (if the quality is there.) My thumbnails all focused in on good clean type, fun type, and very little imagery. With this being a rush project, I went about my thumbnails a bit more selectively than I normally would. I stuck with the theme of Quality and tried to get that feeling across in these logos besides the “try everything and see what works� mentality.

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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Thumbnails Something I think the company stands for and something I wanted to explore in the logo is the idea of travel. During the meeting, I got the feeling that they were focused in on the concept of Passenger standing for a train. I didn’t want to stray too far from this because of the industrial gritty feeling the company has, but I wanted to simplify it and make it a bit more abstract. Throughout some of these logo you can see me using lines to suggest movement and travel and even breaking down parts of a train.

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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Thumbnails When ideas get tough, I always lean back on handlettering. I think handlettering would work really well with this company because you can make handlettering feel really gritty and industrial but at the same time the hand aspect keeps it seclusive and elite. So while I like the idea, going the handlettering route would (I feel) make the company feel like they were trying to confrom to what is popular right now (hipster mode) and that is not the image they would want.

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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Typestudy Something that I usually don’t do, but did during this process was go through a typestudy before I decided on a design. I feel like this worked for this project because the rush aspect of it, and that I knew I was going to be using fonts vs. handlettering. I wanted to see what was aviable to work with before I settled on a design and seeing what was avaible before making a permament decision.

I decided to go with Gotham Rounded and Orator Std for my final design.

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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Digital Comps Now we are at the digital part of the process. Here I took some of the sketches that I was happy with and wanted to explore further and explored them. As you can see, I went with very type heavy, little imagery for most of the digital comps.

With the last row, I wanted to see how clean I could make the train look digitally and while I like the outcome of it, it didn’t go with the feeling I was trying to evoke with the company.

DECISIONS DECISIONS

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Tight Digital Comps The logo I decided on was this vertical format, circular icon with the type centered below it. During this Tight Digital Comps stage, instead of actually tightening up the logo which was pretty much set to go, I explored other variations of using these elements to see what would work best. Everything else I tried felt too cluttered and a try hard so I stuck with the original solid idea.Â

What I like about this logo was that the outcome was purely accidental. I was working on a different icon but when I went to align the elements to make sure things were good, I accidentally selected it all which created the x and two bars.

After seeing it, it resonated with me that the cross relates to the railroad crossing signage and the parallel lines can almost look like a pathway, or railroad tracks.

Very simple and straightforward, which was exactly what I wanted.

DECISIONS DECISIONS

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Color Study The color for this logo was hard to come up with because I was so happy with how the b&w turned out. But, at the same time I felt like it needed color. These are some of the variations that I tried going with and the light blue seemed to be the most versatile. I had to keep in mind that this was going to be featured on a coffee product where each flavor/line would reflect a different color so the logo color has to work with what was there.

DECISIONS DECISIONS

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Packaging After finalizing the logo, the next step was to address the packaging. For the packaging I stuck with simple shapes and white space. I like the vertical lines because it balances off the strong black band that is known for Keurig’s K-Cup packaging. It also balances off the logo which is in a vertical format, but the content in it is mainly horizontal. I think these lines compliment each other well and goes with the simple idea.

I had the decision to keep it real simple with just the logo, the flavor, and the background but it wasn’t there yet. What element could I add to the design to keep it simple, but be what it needed to stand out? I thought about products that I have used that does packaging really well and remembered “Replica,” a fragrant company. I took inspiration from that and used it in the to keep the packaging simple and feeling high end. While the information may seem not important to some, at the same time this little bit of information can be exactly what is needed for that inner “coffee snob.”

PASSENGER BRAND IDENTITY

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The Logo And here we have it, the final logo that compliments the brand well in its simplicity and meaning. It works well with the packaging and as a standalone.

I feel like it keeps in touch with the industrial feeling yet is clean with its thin lines.Â

PASSENGER BRAND IDENTITY

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Packaging After just a few more simple addition to the packaging, I think this is exactly what it needs to stand out as a premium high end K-Cup line. This particular color looks great with the logo and the type is clean and easy to read. Like mentioned before, by going this premium route, we are still attracting the general audience but we are lining ourselves with those who care just a little bit more about their choice in morining drink.