Wine Label Design

This weekend’s project is to design wine labels. It’s a project for my Wines of the World class – not a bad way to round out senior year. I’ve done some labels in the past but I’m back to the drawing board looking for inspiration. Here are a few that are standing out (the first is technically cider, not wine). Looking at wine and beer bottles really never gets old. And (don’t tell my professor) but I almost always choose wine by the label, not for what it is.

Isn’t this Honey Moon one unique? Love the top that matches the honeycomb theme and bright yellow is a pretty rare color when it comes to wine labels so this would definitely stand out!

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Wegman’s Packaging Design Challenge

Life recently has been consumed by working on a team Wegman’s Packaging Design Challenge…

For the past 7 weeks or so in my Packaging Design class, I’ve worked on a team with 5 other students from Industrial Design, Packaging Science and Graphic Design majors. It’s certainly been a challenge at times but overall an awesome experience that gave us a better perspective into working in groups on real-world projects. It seems like forever since we started sketching and coming up with ideas way back when [Process Work / Inspiration]. This morning we presented our final design concept to a team of judges, our professors as well as the rest of the class. 

For the project we were required to cover everything from determining the target market to the new bottle design, new branding, all of the material specifications and the sustainability aspects for end of life considerations. I learned a lot about what goes into creating packaging (which by the way is A LOT more than simply making it look nice on shelf..). It was interesting to hear about all of the technical specifications that went along with it, such as considering how the tertiary (transportation of the good) packaging can be reduced to save costs. Not really things graphic design majors are required to think about in other classes. Still have to say that I’m not a fan of numbers, much happier letting someone else deal with the technical specifications of a bottle or design.

It was also a challenge to design for something that wasn’t going to be viewed flat or on a screen! I learned a lot about the materials and how that plays into how the design looks and works with the bottle. After the initial design of the bottle, we were given a “panel” for the graphics and it was entirely up to use how we used all of the space throughout the bottle. We really looked to minimize the graphics and materials involved which ended up saving a lot of costs of production!

Classes like this are very time consuming but totally worth taking. I can’t even begin to describe how many things (other than the ones listed above) that I learned and will take away from this quarter. I really enjoy classes that push the boundaries of the traditional lecture/do homework/read textbooks. This was a great opportunity to use skills from a variety of majors and really experiment with new ideas (ie. no actual funds for companies were lost). It makes in class time more fun too because rather than being required to sit in a classroom for 3 hours at a time, we’re able to set our own deadlines and work in the studio. Not to mention, having a real-world project like this makes everyone more involved in the class!

Overall a good experience, however, I’m looking forward to getting a little bit more sleep now that it’s all over. Now on to finishing quarter projects for all of my other classes! [More on those later…]

Label Design + Sketches

Clearly packaging design has taken a front seat on the blog for right now. It’s kind of funny because I never really intended on getting into designing products. I first became interested in graphic design because of magazine layouts and the newspaper. Much like how times have changed, I’m much more inclined (and excited about) designing for web.

Taking packaging design this quarter has been interesting because it’s made me think more about how much a label says about a product. It could be the exact same iced tea, coffee or beer and yet the label sets the mood for the customer. If the label is more elegant it implies that it’s probably going to be more expensive. If it’s very minimalist with traditional typefaces it often suggests a store brand (ie. Walmart).

I’m personally drawn towards beer and wine labeling because designers have gotten pretty inventive with the designs for the packaging. Looking at bottles for Juice (our project) they all start to look alike. There is a lot of the standard stock photography looking fruit with water droplets and bright colors. Custom artwork on basic juice labels is rarely seen. Perhaps that’s because fancier labels implies expense?

Lots of thing to keep in mind while designing for juice labels. It’s also turned me into a crazy person (ie. pulling juice bottles from my boyfriend’s recycling and photographing it).

Currently playing around with a number of different ideas for the label design – with a bottle shape that is not 100% nailed down it’s rather difficult to fully work out anything. Hopefully that step gets taken care of this week and we can start working through some more of the designs. Ideally the packaging and the label design would compliment each other and play off of each other. [Ignore the fact that these sketches are all in purple – I just happened to like that marker that day!]

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Juice Packaging

I’ve already posted a fair amount here + here about my packaging project to redesign juice labels. I’ve found it so interesting to look at all of the different types of bottles and designs out there. Right now we’re working on focusing our target audience down to a slightly narrower market. We originally started out by naming three or four different target groups (who were all very different!) so I think focusing it will give us a better idea of where the branding/design aspects need to reach.

Loving these simple yet elegant & funny designs for the juice bottles. “No bad stuff. zilch, zero, nada.” and “one ingredient: fruit”  Clever ways of reinforcing the idea that these are really all natural! Even though juice bottles like Juicy Juice claim to be “all natural”, I’d much prefer to sip on one of these lovely juices – goes to show how much branding can make a difference!

All sorts of different categories of importance go into juice buying: brand loyalty, organic/non organic, price, flavor, and the list goes on.

What do you look for when you pick out your Juice Bottles or other drinks? Does packaging make a difference or are you brand loyal?

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Two Hoots Wine

Maegan Brown is the designer for Two Hoots Wine. I love the simplicity of the design and all of the textures used. I’m always drawn to the more natural, illustrative style wine bottles – I feel like it gives it more character. That said as someone who choose their wine by the label not the wine itself!

Curiosity & Packaging

No matter how long break is, it’s always hard to come back and get right into the swing of things. Winter quarter last left off with a very busy three weeks of non-stop working in December – followed by 3 weeks of going to bed & waking up whenever I wanted. Clearly the alarm going off this morning was a rude awakening.

This morning started off with a field trip to Downtown Rochester to visit American Packaging. Their specialty is flexible packaging – with clients such as Hershey’s, Betty Crocker, Planters, Ricola, Kellogg’s, etc. you’ve more than likely tested out their packaging. From a design standpoint, it wasn’t the most exciting of tours. The class is Packaging Design so we’re working with Packaging Science majors & Industrial Designers who are both clearly on the more technical side of things. As for the designers, well, it was really interesting to see the Kellogg’s cereal covers come off the line! All of the information about layered material processes, heat, weight of foil and lots of other more complicated matters went over my head. It’s quite interesting to learn about all of the different cities & processes it takes to make a cereal box though!

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Picking a Target Market : Packaging Design

Continuing the theme of packaging design, the theme for this project is Fast Food Design. I’ve been looking all over various sites for inspiration when it comes containers. As someone who very, very rarely eats fast food, it’s slightly hard to imagine how I might want to hold my (veggie) burger. But as a designer with a brief, it’s easier to jump into the role of the consumer and figure out what they’d need.

I’ve found for self-directed projects with very limited direction as to the theme, branding, etc, it’s a lot easier when I impose some kind of fake niche market on myself. Easier to wrap my head around thinking like that target market.

Not only does our project have to be a container to hold something, we also have to consider sustainability. How will the trash impact the world? Can people use it afterwards? How much does it cost? What is the cheapest way to make it using the least amount of materials? The questions are endless.

Coffee & Finals Week

In honor of finals week, I thought I’d highlight some sweet labels of the things that are getting me through it. Coffee & Tea!

There are such a variety of labels out there. I’m drawn to the more illustrated hand-drawn labels.

Or coffee mugs that allow you to conveniently store cookie underneath!

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Packaging Design: Simplicity

When it comes to packaging design, I’m of the mindset that simple is better. People often seem to misjudge simple as being “easy” when in reality being able to convey your brand using very little is quite the task.

“What is the purpose?” This is a question that comes up a lot in graphic design courses. Sure that “funky line” might be a neat element but what is it actually trying to convey. One of the reasons I’m drawn to graphic design is the idea that it’s solving problems. It’s using design to do more than make something visually appealing.

Take this next product line for instance. Isn’t all you really need to know about these products, what they are? The simplicity speaks for the product. “Aluminum” Unless you’re really into the thickness and quality of your aluminum, chances are this will do you quite well. Simple. To the point. You don’t always need rainbows and butterflies to get people to buy things.

Packaging Vegetables.

This is something that strikes me as rather odd. Take carrots for instance, they’re grown in the ground in nature and then taken out and processed and put in nice little plastic bags. Have we all gone crazy? Do we really need individually plastic wrapped carrots in order to consider buying them.

For me, this is the appeal of a farmers market, the lack of packaging and branding speaks to the natural, homegrown feel of the produce.

I do really like this approach to “branding” vegetables. Simple tags displaying where the produce was grown. Not to mention the packaging is plantable.

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milk

I think my milk consumption would increase astronomically if it came in a nifty container like this.