Brief
For this project we had to come up with our own creative brief and design packaging for a set of canned beverages for Eden River Brew Co. The drinks are to be sold with the local company, Westmorland Family and must be adaptable to different flavours.
330ml printed craft RTD can
Two options: soft drinks (cola, traditional lemonade, berry, orange) or sparkling water (straight, lemon, orange, tropical)
Target market is adult drivers/passengers and users of Westmoreland Family venues
Soft drinks targeted to everyone; sparkling water to adults
Represents the words natural, refreshing, quality and provenance
Competitors include San Pellegrino, Karma Drinks, Perrier, Squareroot Soda, Marlish Water
Minimum 6pt font
White or silver base (white will show as silver, gloss or matt)
CYMK
Fonts to outline
Panel size: H-89mm, W-212mm
600 dpi
3mm bleed
Must include ingredients, volume (ml), contact information, brand space, nutritional information panel, description, social media, and a bit about the designer
Be weary of trademarks and copyright
Be careful not to offend; no hand gestures
Consider retail lighting, 'in-colours', on\off brand
Brainstorming and Thumbnailing Ideas
I decided to do the soft drinks in the flavours lemonade, cola, berry and grape.
I began by brainstorming some ideas based of the products core values to see where the words might take me.
I initially decided I wanted to use bright colours to suggest the freshness and incorporate the landscape somehow to link with the idea of provenance.
Research/Inspiration
I started by doing a little research to find some initial inspiration. I was very much drawn to designs with lots of colour, and thought that could be a good way to represent the flavours. I also really like the retro style typefaces and lino print style illustrations.
I decided I wanted the cans to be really colourful so they would catch the customers attention on the shelf and create a fun design so that it would appeal to a wide customer base of drivers and passengers. I also looked at the designs of competitors to see how I could make my designs stand out. I was really inspired by the minimalistic illustrations and retro and psychedelic typefaces.
Thumbnail Sketches
I then did some rough thumbnail sketches, exploring how I could manipulate type into different shapes inspired by the flavours or create a logo that could be easily adapted to each flavour by changing the colours used.
Developments
I decided the idea I wanted to take forward was based on illustrating a scene inspired by the Lake District, consisting of mountains and hills so I experimented with bringing that idea to life in Illustrator. Initially, the design I created was intended to be the same for each can with just a colour change so each flavour has a different colour palette. I chose a funky looking typeface and distorted it to create waves reminiscent of psychedelic art and so it complimented the shapes of the hills. I also tested out a bunch of different typefaces as I wanted one that was decorative but not too hard to read.
After some feedback I decided to keep with the same overall theme but illustrate different countryside scenes so each label had more differentiation and also enlarged the illustration area so it wrapped around the can to fill in a lot of the white space.
I also added a halftone effect to some areas to add more texture and make the design look less flat.
Final Design
Here are my four final label designs for each of the flavours. I really like the retro aesthetic and the main typeface I used. I really want to explore the psychedelic style more in future projects.
The final presentation can also be seen below.