Branding and Sustainability

Hello one and all, I hope this fine Saturday finds you in good form : ) I want to talk about a few concepts that are closely tied to packaging design and throw in a little marketing while I'm at it.

Topics
1.Logo Design
2.Branding
3.Sustainability



Logo Design
   You can't have packaging without a logo, or a company, or a brand. All of these things are connected, as in you can't have one without the other. To create an effective logo you have to start with the company. What does your company do? What is special about your company? How do you want your audience to view your company? These are questions that will kickstart the design process and help you in creating a rockstar logo. This is a little review of logo design from my post about logos.

So here are my four "must haves" when it comes to great logos designs.

1. BOLD

2. VERSATILE

3. SIMPLE

4. NO/LITTLE GRADIENT

Branding and Sustainability

   Now a logo is all fine and dandy but you can't just slap a logo on a bottle and expect it to make you legendary. The logo is the jumping off point, from there you can create, and expand on your company by using the concept of branding. Branding is strategic, it expresses the values, and personality of a particular company. Think of branding as the face of the company, what people think about when they see the logo, or what they

think of when they hear about it. 

   Take Heineken for example, their latest branding campaign features Daniel Craig, the current James Bond. This creates a killer vibe for the brand, the bad boy routine, and come on, what man doesn't want to be James Bond. Their commercials feature Craig in his Bond persona, escaping from trouble, causing trouble, and saving the day.  How does he end his day? That's right he grabs a Heineken. 

Sustainability

   Now here's something to wrap your brain around, Heineken has been around since 1873; that's 141 years. Now look at the label, does that look like a dusty 141 year old label, no. That's because Heineken understands the concept of Sustainability. 

   They have a central logo, the name and the red star, and yet the labels have changed over the years. They understand that trends come and go, that visual tastes change, and that the quality of design is always increasing. People get bored when things stay the same; a great company understands that, and they are able to develop campaigns that adapt the logos to current ideas.

Well, thanks for the reads this week, as always I hope you enjoyed my thoughts and findings. Have a great and responsible weekend! : ) Go forth and Create!

Marketing Wine to Women

Happy Friday! Spring break is around the corner and liquor sales are about to climb skyward. For anyone looking for great spring break drinks that won't add inches to your waistline click here. 

   This week I wanted to talk about current trends in wine marketing and how it has affected design. What do you think of when you hear words like chocolate, birthday cake, and cupcakes? Super yummy desserts right? Well now you can think of wine.

 

Birthday Cake 

   Here we have Birthday Cake wine, no real logo, and a boring bottle design. The logo is a busy script font that is boring and hard to read. The bottle wrap is confusing, is it supposed be grey drips going down or is it colored drips floating upward? The whole packaging is just an exercise in bad design. It's hard to imagine that this came from the creators of Hpnotiq and Skyy Vodka.  

ChocolatRouge

   The logo for ChocolatRouge is a light brown squiggle on a field of black. What's up with the squiggle, it looks less like chocolate, and more like a river of caramel. There is something unattractive about the color pallet used in this brand. The bottle on the right is either clear and shows the color of the wine or the bottle itself is colored brown. This color is unpleasant, it is murky, and does not make me want to drink it. The logo is disconnected from the name and just a harsh design overall. 

Cupcake Wine

   Of the three wines described today this is my pick of the week. It has a logo, a clear vision, and interesting colors. The actual logo, the little red cupcake, is somewhat hidden in the blue filagree border. The logo is clearly a stylized cupcake that hints at abstraction but remains recognizable. While the logo somewhat disappears in the filagree from a distance, close up, the logo appears clearly. 

   Cupcake winery has created a delicate and upscale brand image that markets well to women. The fonts are attractive and reflect the delicate nature of the brand. The colors are beautiful, the blue is dense enough to show up and not overpower, and there is just enough yellow to pop the label off of the bottle. I gravitate towards small type but this label is a bit small for me. 

While wines are trying to market to the female sweet tooth, you can't just chose a script font, and slap a label on a bottle and call it a good idea. Design takes time and consideration, lazy design work has no business, and there is definitely no room for it in high quality marketing. Thanks for the reads this week, and now that the Earth is warming up, try to get outside this weekend. Go do something, create, experience, just do it! 

Alyssa out!

What's Trending: Microbreweries

Happy Saturday to everyone. Looks like the weather is finally changing for the better! Here in Iowa we still have loads of snow on the ground but watch out for the heat wave this weekend, a balmy 40 degrees! Speaking of turning up the heat; let's find out what's going to be HOT and TRENDING this year in the liquor market and what it has to do with this weeks topic.

What's HOT!

   1. Micro-distilled/artisan spirits

   2. Locally produced beer/wine/spirits

   3. On site barrel-aged drinks
   4. Culinary Cocktails

   5. Regional signature cocktails

According to the National Restaurant Association's Culinary Forecast these are the top five trends to look for in 2014

Why is this important? What does this have to do with packaging? I'm glad you asked. When you know what's trending, or what's popular, you can jump on the band wagon and design for that trend. We are talking about 1 and 2, local micro distilleries, and microbreweries. The trend with microbreweries is graphics, retro colors schemes, and the American way.

Olde Main Brewing Company and Restaurant 

Logo
   The Olde Main logo has several things going for it, the circle is a big bold shape that tends to always get attention. The green and red colors are interesting and appealing. The problems I have with this logo lies with the yellow/tan color, the banner, and the wheat. The yellow and the shape of the banner try to mimic aged parchment paper but they both fall short. They give the logo an unfinished, beginning design, and it just looks like clip art that someone made on Word. The wheat is a great addition to the logo but they are too small to have any impact. The wheat fades away at a distance and the yellow color is too close to the green which only makes it harder to stand out.


Packaging
  To the right we have a few of the Olde Main bottle labels. Each different beer has it's own personality, color scheme, and imagery. The only thing they have that unifies them is the logo on the neck wrap and the band of yellow brackets the label. I have such a problem with these labels, they are remarkable disconnected from the logo and that bothers me. Now I understand wanting to have diversity and change it up a bit but you have to think about the brand. The brand should have a unifying theme so that at a glance people recognize your products.

Exile Brewing Company

Logo

   Exile Brewing has a gorgeous logo design, clearly thought out, everything has been carefully placed, and the colors are fantastic. This logo goes a little against the trend since it's more modern but it is still wonderful. Now, I do love it, but it is a touch busy.








Packaging
  To the left we have the labels and the identity of Exile's four main beers, each one has a different girl and personality. I find the idea interesting and the execution is fabulous. Each girl is different and represents the flavor of beer but once again I have a problem. They do not further the brand that is described by the logo. The logo is modern and linear and full of design principles while the girls are reminiscent of a different age. They represent the days of pin-ups and the good old days.

Backpocket Brewing

   Backpocket Brewing is my cream of the crop this week. I love what this brand is doing, how they portray their brand, the colors, and the era they represent.
Logo
   When I look at this logo I see a carefully planed out, well designed, and clear brand to go with the name. The shape reflects the name, it looks like the back pocket of a pair of worn denim jeans. Here in the Midwest, where the beer is centered, we have a lot of farmers and a history of hard working. The classic image of a tired worker wiping his hands on the legs of his worn jeans comes to mind when I see this logo. It's a beer for the people, the hard workers, and for those looking for quality.
   The blue and mustardy yellow are beautiful together. The font and its' placement are great, having the name arch over top of the rest of the logo, it really works here unlike Olde Mains' logo. The logo is simple, clear, and easy to understand. I only worry about the wheat and the little hairs, it depends on the size, but I worry about them getting lost at smaller sizes.

Packaging





   Wow! What a beautiful continuation of the brand. You look at these bottles and you can tell without a doubt that these are a part of the Backpocket brand. They reflect the brand and yet at the same time each bottle has a different personality and a different style/flavor of beer. It can be done! The colors are different than those in the those in the logo but they stay in the same tone, a little dark, muted, maybe a little aged. The names of the beers are clearly displayed and even those reflect the logo so thumbs up to Backpocket Brewery! I love the style that the illustrations are done in, they have a 50s sort of vibe, another throw back to the good ol days. I love this brand and how it has been spread out across the packaging design so for me Backpocket Brewing is top dog this week.

So what is important about all of this?
   To remain relevant you have to keep track of what is trending, what's popular, and right now one of the most popular trends in alcohol consumption is micro brewed beers. People want the intimate atmosphere of the micro pubs and their small batch of designer beers.
   One trend within the trend of micro breweries is to have throw backs, or retro brands that bring in the new drinking crowd and brings back the old drinking crowd. This is exciting stuff, there is so much competition, and so many brands out there that just can't keep up with the top dogs.

So that's it for this week, thanks for the reads, tell me what you think, comment, like, tweet and tell me about it!

Go out and do it! Make it happen!