first packaging drafts

So I probably won’t have too much time to write about these before crit, but I wanted to get the ideas posted.  More details to follow!

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research and refocusing

So last week in class I started working on a label for my hot chocolate container.  I’m thinking about doing sort of a puffy box (one of those hybrid type things that’s between a box and a cylinder, just a fold on each side and the circular tops “puff” the box out).  I think I’m going to have to try making one before I decide on this format as my final!  But I wanted to use this sort of packaging, as it’s one I haven’t seen before, and I think that will help it stand out on the shelves from the traditional boxes and canisters.

However, so far I’m not all that crazy about my design.  I think it has some good things about it, but I’m not that excited about it overall.  So I decided I should really sit down and do a little research before class tonight about what other hot chocolate brands are out there, and how my design can differentiate this brand.

First, there are your well known brands that I think just about every grocery store carries: Swiss Miss, Nestle, Hersheys, and also Ghiradelli and Godiva.  I’m not sure that all stores carry the last two, but they seem to be fairly well known brands overall.  Here are some quick shots of their package designs:

There are also a few additional brands I found in my searching.  The first two in the following picture are a little more upscale, the bottom three are specialty brands I found at Target:

There aren’t any major similarities that I see across all the brands.  But I will say that in general, I feel like the mainstream brands (Swiss Miss, Nestle and Hershey’s) are a little busier than the upscale brands.  Since I want my brand to be a little more calming and relaxing, I don’t think that’s a feel I want to go for.  Also, on the Swiss Miss brand, it gives a feeling of cold and winter with the snow and mountains in the background.  While I know that’s when a lot of people drink hot chocolate, I also want my brand to be something people want to buy year round.  So I definitely want to stay away from any seasonal type of imagery.

I like that the upscale, and specialty brands feel a little more clean, and detached from any seasonal imagery.  However, I still feel like they could be a little cleaner, or more modern, so perhaps this is the angle I need to take on with my brand.  The two upscale brands are probably my favorite overall, and these were the two not sold at Target, so I think bringing something a little more crisp and fresh to the shelves is what I should be focusing on.  Something that feels slightly upscale, but not so much to alienate a typical target shopper, or give off the impression it’s more expensive than it is.

Before, in my original post about the company, I used the following adjectives to describe the company: calming, relaxing, creative and unique.  I still definitely want to keep all these feelings, but I think from my research, I want to also add clean, modern and accessible.  Clean and modern in the respect that I want my product to stand out on the shelves as something a little fancier, but again, not to alienate a typical target customer.  Accessible can go two ways, first that it reaches a mass audience, and second that it’s a product people want to buy year-round.  It can still be something that’s relaxing, calm, and a bit of a treat, but also a treat you would want any season of the year, and not something so fancy you feel guilty for buying it!

So I hope this is going to help focus my work a little more for class tonight!  At least I’m learning a little more of what I don’t want, and what angle to focus on!

final project – round two

So after crit last week, and reading people’s comments, I decided I definitely needed to take a second look at my logo. I hadn’t thought about it reading as a “warning label,” but that was not the feel I was going for! So first, I decided to try playing with the relative size of the two words, and I think I like where this is going now. Keeping the “hot!” in the script font I feel makes it less jarring, and then having “chocolate” be the more prominent word makes that more of the focus. (As it should be…that’s why you’d drink hot chocolate!).

I had liked the look of the squares previously, but with the new word arrangement, I don’t think I can keep that…I tried a few, but I’m not really satisfied with how they look. After some of the demonstrations we had in class, I tried playing around with the twist tool, and I thought it made a really cool effect that sort of looks like chocolate the way it swirls at the top of your cup. I hope other people get this impression too, and if that’s the case, I’m definitely leaning towards one of the bottom two designs posted below. I wasn’t sure if the one on the left might be too busy, but I feel like it could also be influenced with how the rest of the packaging looks, and how the logo is used. I’m looking forward to the that next challenge of now actually using the design on packaging!

final project – first logo drafts

Here are some drafts I’ve come up with so far.  First I wanted to take a look at the text I was using for the logo.  I have a number of options here:

Right now I’m leaning towards the top two, keeping the fonts a little more simple, so that it’s still clean, calming and easily readable.   However, I think this will highly depend on how the font fits in with the rest of the logo design, colors, etc.

Here are some first thoughts for logos.  Again, I’m still deliberating about which fonts to use, and of course what the overall logo would look like!  But I started trying out a few combinations:

The six bottom squares are the color palette I’m looking at using.  I wanted to pick a shades of brown to use to represent each different kind of chocolate.  The other colors I feel like could represent different flavors (reddish for raspberry, green for mint, orange for cinnamon or orange , etc.)  Overall, I wanted the color palette to be calming, and also pleasing in terms of food – colors that make the hot chocolate look appetizing.   (Right now as I’m posting this, I hope these colors look the same as when I worked on this at home, since I have CS2… ).

So far I’m leaning towards the square designs.  I think the text layout I have so far lends itself well to this, and it’s a versatile  shape to use on any marketing items I come up with.  I’m leaning towards the brown text as well, only because I think it evokes more of a chocolate feeling, but I’m still definitely in the early stages.  I’m very open to feedback, and hopefully between the blogs and crit tonight, I’ll have a solid direction to start taking this project after tonight!

final project – product/company detail

After a good bit of deliberation, I think I’ve come up with the concept for the final project.  I knew I wanted to work with a product I was familiar with (so the details of the packaging – size, ingredients, etc.) would be accurate, but I wanted to certainly come up with my own brand and new idea.  Hopefully this concept will work!

The store is called “hot! chocolate.” and it of course specializes in hot chocolate, and other drinks.  What differentiates this store from your typical Starbucks is first, that it will specialize in different flavors of hot chocolate, and it will actually allow customers to customize their type of hot chocolate if they are getting a drink made in the shop.  For example, someone can chose the type of chocolate (e.g. milk, dark, or white), and then you can also chose additional flavors (e.g. raspberry, mint, hazelnut, cinnamon), and then of course type of milk, soy milk, etc.  The store will also sell its “specialty mixes” (like raspberry dark chocolate or white chocolate mint) for customers to take and make at home, and that’s where I will focus my packaging design.  These will basically be like the packages or cannisters of hot chocolate you can get at the grocery store (add water or milk and make yourself), but with more of a specialty twist from the unique flavors.

I think this store should appeal to a mass market, though still have a bit of an upscale or luxury feel.  It’s not somewhere you might necessarily go everyday, but it’s a nice escape, and a calming place to come relax with some good hot chocolate.  It would be marketed to all ages and appeal to any chocolate lovers.  This is a store that takes good chocolate seriously, and also allows the customers to have some flexibility and creativity with their orders, so that their drink can really cater to their tastes.  And again having the “specialty mixes,” this will give customers ideas for things to try, or they can be more creative and create their own drinks.  Overall, I feel like some words and thoughts to capture this shop would be calming, relaxing, creative and unique.