This exercises allowed me to explore how illustration is used in packaging. Sometimes we don't notice at all how much creativity, design, and illustration goes into effective packaging. I have noticed more and more of a trend to really utilise illustration - this seems particularly true in the emerging craft alcohol market.
For my exercise, I had to consider children's biscuits as the target, so I started by going to a few supermarkets to do some research:
I did stray a little into the realm of other kids-focused packaging to try and get a breadth of examples. The instructions mentioned deciding about who to appeal to, the buyer or the child. There are a lot of very child-like or cartoony examples in what I saw.
My son likes the Bear Claws dried fruit snacks, and their packaging has always appealed to me and my son alike, so I was intrigued about the qualities of the packaging that helped it do that. There is a good use of colour and cartoons, but also there is a cleverness to the Bear logo which really appeals to me and the use of font's is attractive but not inherently childish.
The exercise called for extinct animals who interacted with the biscuits in some way. I did start with some internet research to find interesting extinct animals, but I realised that I was trying to be too clever and not thinking of my audience. It needed to be recognisable, and showing some obscure extinct animal would likely not speak to either consumer or purchaser.
So I ended up experimenting with dinosaurs as a more accessible and acceptable extinct set of animals. I spent the next few days experimenting and doodling in my sketch book:
As I was going, I was trying to think about stylistic choices I might want, or not want, to make. I wanted to see if I could make a seemingly sophisticated render using an effect that was inherently child-like, like crayons. To give me some breadth for experimentation, I decided to play with this idea on Procreate:
The final image was interesting, and I found the exercise useful for me to think about how to make purposeful marks.
I think it's really hard to place simple marks that convey lots of visual information simply. It's something I think I should take more note of, and look for opportunities to play with this.
Having recently seen a lot of excellent children's book illustrations at the World Illustration Awards, it's obvious to see that a lot of thought and skill goes into making artwork that embraces simplicity.
The other thing I need to factor in when using digital media is how one can, and should 'paint' with the eraser tool. I have had some really useful feedback from Ray Eckermann through Instagram about how he manages to create intentional lines (crisp or wobbly) in his work through the use of the eraser - something he learned from illustrating on whiteboards. It's advice that has already benefited me.
As I was experimenting I had the idea for the name of the fictional cookies/biscuits. The alliterative name 'Dapper Dinos' popped into my head, and that took my ideas down a new track about how to illustrate the dinosaurs.
The idea kept on evolving in my head and I had the idea of these very turn-of-the-century dinosaurs eating tea and biscuits. It seemed so very British, and the anachronism was really amusing to my son, who is six, so I thought I had struck a chord with the idea. I decided to develop the ideas more into some roughs:
I was trying to get a feel for the composition in relation to the overall layout, trying to think about where the text might sit. I chose a border for the branding that seemed to fit with a Victorian-like aesthetic, and used visual references for some of the elements like the bonnet and dinosaur heads, getting enough truth that they would be recognisable, without putting in too much detail.
The next part was for me to consider colour. I looked back at my research and other online shopping outlets to see if there was convention I could utilise. I think some convention is really important in packaging if you want to communicate essential information in the few seconds you have to appeal to people. If you mix it up it can throw people off or make you less attractive. I think particularly of potato crisps - for most brands Cheese and Onion are green, and Salt & Vinegar are blue. However Walkers crisps flips this, and it still bugs me to this day!
I wanted to try and tie the brand together so it was recognisable that they are from the same brand / family. So I chose neutral cream background, and then changed the ink colours to fit. I did some research about turn-of-the-century advertising, and the various typefaces, techniques and layouts that were used. You can see an example here [1].
Often colour was a luxury, so the paper would be plain white or off-white. To make it visually interesting they seemed to like to use a lot of variation in fonts, and utilised ornamentation and ligatures to embellish the fonts. They seem to use techniques available at the time like engraving to at texture and interest to illustrations.
So with this in mind I chose unifying colour schemes for each drawing, allowing to keep to the monochrome feeling of old advertising, tying them together from a brand point of view, but also adding some colour and interest into the pieces, which kept to the brief. I then chose typefaces that had an element of Victorian ostentation, but also had clarity. I changed the hand-written "Organic" from the roughs to a printed effect in keeping with the time. I am still not 100% sure on the font choice; I am not sure if it stands out enough. I am, however, really happy with the Dapper Dinos - I think this font works really well.
The brief also needed a mockup of at least one of the options. I didnt want't to do a mockup with just a colour visual, so I decided to take one of the options as far as I could to a final illustration:
I added distressed textures to the background cream colour, and the top branding plate. I also made the decision to change Organic to Organic Biscuits, which meant I didn't need to try and ram too much information down below. I chose a simpler, but in-keeping font for the flavour text, keeping it purple to fit in with the brand theme.
To evoke the way victorian adverts were often illustrated, I used an engraved style to add texture, value and depth to the T-Rex. I really enjoyed this part and given that I have not always been very successful with my hatching and cross-hatching attempts in the past, I think I got a really good effect and I particularly like that I managed to capture a certain feel of different textures in the dinosaur's skin. The eye bugs me, but I also didn't want to end up over-working the artwork. In order to create a good mockup, I created another layout for the side of the box and then pulled them together to get the effect of a tall cookie box, similar to the ones I have seen in the supermarkets:
When seen like this I did have some thoughts - adding the texture to the cream ended up dulling it, and the resulting colour feels more like plain cardboard that a neutral cream. I like the overall effect so I decided to keep it for the exercise, but I do wonder if this makes the overall product feel a bit cheap as a result?
hellofarmhouse.com (2017). intage Farmhouse Advertisements – Glenn’s Sulphur Soap. [image] Available at: https://hellofarmhouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/glenns-med.jpg [Accessed 28 Jul. 2019].
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