Hot sauces are a playground for design work. I wouldn't say you can put no effort at all into making something good, but the acceptable bar is set pretty low in terms of what is tasteful and what is "artistic". The breadth of style is also surprising. Screaming children, ammunition, skulls, goats, fire, all have a place next to high effort illustrations.

There are fantastic examples of heat-forward foods all over the globe. It's tempting, then, to create a brand that will focus on one region to draw inspiration. I wanted something that would allow for flavors from any region to blend well with the branding.

There's a level of indulgence in the classics here. Fire is just a great way to convey the prime messaging here. I didn't want to just rely on mild, medium, and hot to get that across (although they are still present). Incorporating the levels of fire into the bird logo and color coding the bottles should help customers find the right bottle faster.

Maintaining the look and feel of the logo is extremely important in any branding project. Here, the running thread of rough lines and hand-painted lettering paired with flat solid icons and rounded sans serif body copy pulls the theme together.

There's a temptation to rely on describing how much flavor is in each bottle, but that's a tactic often associated with high-volume, commercial products. Presenting the process visually, from the peppers in the field to the food on the table and everything in between, reinforces the care taken in production.

As I mentioned before, as great as it is to have really cool graphics, reinforcing the small business angle is still very appealing on the shelf. Natural papers and generic bottles will catch the eye of sauce enthusiasts looking for their next favorite flavor.

As always, thanks so much for checking out this project!