Luxury Coffee Branding: Design Developments

Upon reviewing the designs below I started to consider how they would work as packaging as although the classic square box (see figure 1-2) is easily produced I wanted to explore the scientific nature of the designs further, in order to create a stronger concept. In relation to the design itself the colours (see figures 3-5) used are based on the colour change of the beans throughout there lifespan as they start as red cherries which are then stripped allowing the green beans to be revealed. Throughout colour experiments I looked at creating bright vibrant packaging using bold shades of red and green however I felt this look too garish with poor legibility (see figures 3-4), as it was difficult to read the white text on coloured backgrounds. Consequently this lead to the use of more muted version (see figure 5) of the colours so the packaging would still reference the colour change of the beans but allow for a more refine aesthetic to be created allowing the designer to more accuratly reflect the target audience. I also experiment with other colours such as black and white and orange (see figures 6-8) however although these colours made the text legible they didn't have the conceptual reasoning that the transition of red to green has (see figure 5). Furthermore a different typeface was chosen for these designs, GT America Mono Trial as this created a more scientific aesthetic to the packaging rather than the typeface used in previous experimentations, Roboto (see figures 1-2). 

The focus on creating a stronger concept resulted in the idea to package the coffee within test tubes which would contain samples of each roast so the gift set could be given to some to sample the range of coffee before purchasing a larger quantity. This presented an interesting issue as to how to print the design onto the tube, leading to the idea to print clear stickers (see figures 9-12) as it’s not possible to print onto metal using the facilities available within university. In order to explore this idea further I print all three labels twice to see how each variation would look when stuck onto the metal due to the potential alteration in colour. Furthermore two different types of adhesive paper where experimented with one which has a sticky back and one that used static electricity to adhere to the material. 

Furthermore in order to gain an idea of size I used an existing metal container which resembles a test tube which allowed me to gain a greater understanding about the composition of the label and space available as when design the initial able I was concerned about the type size being too small and illegible (see figure 9-11). However based on the size of the initial labels I think the current sizing is slightly too big and could be reduced in order to fit all necessary information on the packaging. Furthermore the initial labels were too long for the classic test tubes therefor further alteration to the composition will need to take place in order to create a label that fits the tubes (see figures 12-15) but also allows the formula to be bold and a central part of the label whilst allowing the supporting text to be visible. In addition the colours also need to be brighter as the muted tones look too dull against the metal packaging (see figures 16-19). Applying the sticker was quite difficult as it was too long for the tube creating air bubbles underneath the sticker as a flush finish couldn't be achieved (see figures 16-19), however this could of been due to residue left on the container from the previous label. 

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