Once given a theme word at random, base a brand, soda/drink carrier, and four
different labels for four different drink flavours that will go in your assorted four-pack.
Theme: Athletes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As far as inspiration, I was especailly drawn towards minimalism, especially with my
opening thoughtsof brainstorming with this project as I was thinking shallowly at first.
I wanted a clean, maybe more typographic-based design, as I thought about how
many characteristics I could focus on about one single athlete for each bottle of drink.
It wasn’t until my idea of interpreting my assigned approach away towards action and
It wasn’t until my idea of interpreting my assigned approach away towards action and
more towards reason and intention where I started to draw inspiration from the national park posters
and other simple, yet grand designs that show the beauty that so many people flock towards.
There was one day of critique that brought about a guiding thought that was essential for this project.
My professor asked me something about focusing in on all of the action in a single
perspective of one of my alternative outdoor sports and I thought
“I don’t want this to be an intense project, or a project all about a single, elevated famous person.
I want reason and drive and to trump a moment of action or cheers.
I wanted my entire drink company to think that way, too."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At first, being assigned the approach/theme of “athletes,” I had a choice to make in
my brainstorming sessions. I found myself interpreting my assignment in both a
literal/shallow light and in a deeper light. My top three ideas that came to me were
sports equipment, famous athlete jersey numbers (for a more typographic box/label design),
and a landscpae/outdoor recreation based definition of “athletes.”
I began on a few executions of what I could do with sports equipment.
They were okay, still minimal and simplistic with a little edge, but once I started creating
digital illustrations of a few of the outdoor recreation meccas like Moab and Big Bend National Park,
I definitely knew which route I ought to take, and my peers encouraged me to do the same.
I wanted to take this project and not just expand my skills at vector art and digital illustration,
but also to push the label of what an athlete truly is and to raise awareness that there
are more than just the people you see on ESPN/ teams sports.
I wanted my drink company’s aim to be for all people, but celebrate a certain type of
athlete and what separates them from what you do see with mainstream sports.
I went ahead and tried out two labels for each idea.
I had more to my eqiupment idea but I think I didn’t save correctly to Illustrator
and now they aren’t all there. But! There were four flavour ideas as you can see
in my sketches above. They are pretty simple, pretty expected concepts.
I mean, they’re just literally vector images of sports epqiment in diferent colours.
Once I started illustrating my landscapes, I really felt like this could catch some eyes on a soda bottle.
The only thing I was worried about after a critique or two was the placements of
the landscapes and how a bottle is usually broken up into 3 quadrants. With an entire landscape
the landscapes and how a bottle is usually broken up into 3 quadrants. With an entire landscape
not being visible at once, I began to worry a little bit, but still knew that these illustrations
had a place in my designs for the project. I went with it.
Moab, UT! Rio Grande, TX! Park City, UT! Bishop, CA!
I started breaking up my labels into three sections so that it would break up
the space of the bottle nicely and direct the eye to focus on whatever information that section of label contained.
As I started (what I thought) was the answer to my labels, I began thinking outside of the box, literally,
about the outside of my box and what would go on there. I knew that aside from my detailed
illustrations of landscape, I wanted the rest of my brand to put out very simple, but still catching,
designs on the drink carrier. I started thinking of all the colors I used to draw each location
and thought that it would be cool to maybe create a colour swatch type look for the outside
of the box to pair with my san-serif main typeface “Superclar- endon” that I was using
for a large portion of the brand.
(These are just digital doodles, random and slapped on, but still
contains the concept/image I want)
I got to thinking about switching the colour swatch-esque design with the
landscape illustrations. I played around with the idea and put my typography in a
blue bounding box and made my words white, going for a subtle “illustration” of clouds in a
sky above each location. I liked this idea a lot more and again, just started going
with it for every label design until I came up with......
And with the label evolution came the
drink carrier evolution..
This felt like a probable box design that would best (literally) fit my design with.
It was more symmetrical than others I saw, easier to align my deisngs with,
and honestly looked better, too, especially with the larger handle and larger negative
space to work around once I was ready to print this out onto chip board
and start constructing my carrier.
Easily the toughest part of this assignment was (and still is) the construction of the box.
I glued my print out onto a chipboard that Alpha Graphics in Idaho Falls sold and
it turned out to be extrmely thick, especially with the premium matte photo paper glue onto it.
I cut it out using a box-cutter and multiple x-acto knife blades and made the scores and
creases with a bone folding tool, the type used in Book Arts. As I type this, parts of the box
are still drying, so we’ll see how it turns out after I’m done typing.
FINAL :
The redesign for this threw me through a little loop.
I was told this had too much of a Jones Soda look, I didn't
know how to take it because I'm from the East Coast and it's
not really present out there. When I saw what the branding of
Jones Soda, I could tell my typography could stand to be reevaluted.
I decided to take out the "sky and clouds" concept with my typography
and panels and simplify it. After a few hours of tweaking, I really feel proud to call this resign mine.
--- re-print and construction to come later ---
