Packaging 

The brief: 

Produce a series of illustrations for packaging to be used for a new range of organic biscuits for children. There are three varieties in the range - "Raisin, Choc chip and Ginger" biscuits. The client specifically wants three illustrations featuring extinct animals interacting in some fun way with a biscuit to be used on the boxes. The drawings should be in full colour and the client would like the colours to reflect the 'flavour' of the biscuit.

Research: 

I started by taking a good look at the market. The question - how will you stand out amongst others?

I think the subject I will be working with, extinct animals does give me an advantage here as it is different and attractive to children, I could not find any other brand using this subject matter. I would like my packaging to attract children, as I feel my subject matter will be best suited to children, so I have chosen "pester power". 

Packaging on the market was varied. Disappointingly boring in places, however, do certain flavours of biscuits need "pushing" with fancy designs..... Or are Bourbon Creams such a staple, they sell knowing the consumer will buy them regardless of how interesting the packaging is? 

Other brands such as Cadbury are recognisable thanks to their iconic purple. Their use of large fonts also distinguishable. They always place their name just left and above the name of the biscuit. The also make the font size larger than I would perhaps have thought. In the case of chocolate 'Fingers', they cleverly use a chocolate finger to form the 'i'. 

I also looked at the packaging of two firm favourites here at home with my 10 and 7 year old. 'Oreo'. Again the font is large. Surrounding 'Creme' are splashes of cream, and wedged in the middle of varying fonts, an Oreo biscuit. A deep and bright blue for background. A large name. a popular biscuit not over complicating the design. Three different fonts are used to form the words 'Oreo Double Creme' - A combination of uppercase, lowercase, serif and sans serif. 

To help understand the packaging I also studied the dimensions of the packet and mapped out where they included text: 

I took at a look at 'Ice Gems'. Interestingly and relevant to me with this exercise, they do use a creature for their packaging, a Polar Bear. He is interacting with the biscuits, holding them in his arms and presenting them to the consumer with a big and happy smile. His eyes are bright and his appearance friendly. Perfect to attract a young child. The packaging background is blue. The font is in two colours, blue and yellow - uppercase, sans serif. The biscuits in the arms of the polar bear are true to form, purple and yellow icing and look appealing. I really like this packaging: 

As the brief specifically asks for boxes for the biscuits, I take the box of 'Cadbury Fingers' as my starting point. Again here, I map out the dimensions and will uses these for my designs:

Brainstorm of ideas: 

Not really having a starting point before this point, here I found my ideas. 

1. A flying dinosaur navigating through a night sky like a pilot. 

2. A Dodo, the characters created as a King and Queen. 

3. A playful Mammoth. 

MOOD BOARD: 

I selected reference for my extinct animals. My challenge here will be to create child friendly versions of these animals, they appear here as reference as very stern looking beasts! 

Sketches: 

Using my reference photo above, I thought about the creatures I had in mind -  A Mammoth, a Dodo and a flying dinosaur and sketched them as characters using coloured pencils. Here I wanted to create characters that looked fun and friendly, like the 'Iced Gems' Polar bear: 

Thumbnails: 

Focusing on my extinct animals and how they could interact with a biscuit, I created my thumbnails: 

Here I made the Dodo into a King or Queen, adding a crown. With this in mind I used the biscuits to appear like treasure around the Dodo. In the second box, I used the biscuits  to create a royal nest: 

Here I wanted a playful Mammoth. In the first box the Mammoth is tight rope walking, training the biscuits with the addition of wings for balance. In the second box the Mammoth is balancing on a giant biscuit as if it were a ball: 

In this thumbnail my flying dinosaur is flying through the sky, I have used the biscuits like stars that he is navigating his way around with the addition of pilot goggles: 

Using my biscuit box dimensions I drew out my thumbnail design. I started with a pencil so I could keep working my sketches until they fit comfortably into my researched dimensions:  

Royal Dodo with her biscuit treasure: 

Tight rope walking Mammoth training his biscuits: 

Pilot flying dinosaur with his aviation goggles navigating through a sky of biscuit stars: 

Now for colour. The brief asks for three varieties Raisin, Choc Chip and Ginger. The brief asks that my illustrations are in full colour and the colour reflects the flavour of the biscuit. As I have created child inspired, friendly creatures I want to use a medium that fits the nature of my designs and fits the bill 'pester power'. 

I choose to use crayons, they are playful. Crayons don't offer a wide colour palette, but they do offer bold options and are naturally child like. 

Visuals: 

Illustration 1: 

Choc Chip flavour colours: Browns, yellows. The band of the crown will change to match the flavour of the biscuit. In this case brown for choc chip, however could be orange for ginger or purple for raisin: 

Illustration 2: 

Ginger flavour. Orange and yellow.  The wings of the Mammoth will match the colour of the biscuits. in this case orange for ginger however could be changed to purple for raisin and brown for choc chip. 

Illustration 3: 

Raisin flavour: Purple. The colour of the aviation goggles will match the colour of the flavour, in this case purple but could be changed to orange for ginger or brown for choc chip: 

Mock up: 

Typography: 

I opted to use typed typography here. I wanted a more serious font for parents that reads'Raisin Organic Biscuits', this is an important element for parents to read. I chose 'Impact' in lilac to match the purple.

For this example I added the name of the biscuits and chose 'Little Snappers'. This fits with the idea of an extinct animal and also sounds infant and child like.

I used two separate fonts to describe the words, as I had learnt from 'Text and Image'. 

To describe and use for 'little' I chose 'Comic Sans', it is small and infant, sweet and friendly. I chose to colour it in lilac with a pink outline. 

For 'Snappers' I used 'AR Bianca' in a deep red with a rough black outline, I feel it has a dinosaur appearance about it. 

FINAL: 

REFLECTION: 

I was really happy working my way through these drawings. Sourcing inspiration from other brands was incredibly useful, especially the 'Ice Gems' who choose the polar bear character. It helped guide me. 

I took a trip to the Natural History Museum in Oxford to assist with this exercise and immersed myself with the weird and wonderful species that are now extinct. It is there I decided upon the characters that I did.  I like my characters, all of them were very pleasing to work with. 

Studying existing packets of biscuits was really handy when playing with fonts, and the freedom to use more than one on the packet was a useful learning opportunity. 

I opted for crayon as my colouring technique, a medium most associated with children, if I was to do this again, I would see how my designs looked using a different technique. It would also be interesting to see how they look digitally. 

A really fun and pleasing exercise. 

References:

Brands, Oreo & Mcvities. 

The Natural History Museum, Oxford.