OUGD401 - Practical Research Project - Initial Ideas

I went straight to digital when working on my neutral brand identity which I don’t usually do but I felt it would be easier to play around with type  and colour.

I was very much inspired by the Chocolate editions packaging which is very simple - just white packaging with sans serif lettering. I also used a see through window to the chocolate to give it the colour and interest. I thought that I could call it “Honest chocolate” because the packaging, being neutral, is honest to the value of the chocolate and it’s fooling you into buying it. Playing on this “no fooling” idea I thought I’d add the tag line of ‘for pleasure only’ suggesting that you only eat chocolate for fun as it isn’t really a food you would eat for a main meal.

I also tried the packaging in a serif font but I feel that this doesn’t work at all as serifs do imply quality and luxury, which I am not at all trying to portray. I took these 2 designs to a critique and was told that because they were so neutral, they wouldn’t sell the product at all. Deeming the point of having packaging on a product useless. If I wanted to brand chocolate as ‘neutral’ I would probably have to sell it unpackaged. 

So I tried to think of products within society that lacks value and quality and the thing that came to mind was prescription medicinal packaging. Unlike other packaging, medicines from prescriptions usually have  limited colour schemes and only include information that is essential and nothing persuasive or playing on the senses. It is simple and to the point and in my opinion neutral. 

So I tried to design chocolate as if it was medicine, something that you would eat if you were stressed or sad. I played on this by using “for relief of” and a list of ‘symptoms’ that it could help. I also tried to use a gender neutral colour, orange, just to add a bit more interest to the design.

I changed around the layout to the second design and I feel that this works much better. It is very similar to the Imagintol packaging that I found and this layout just works really well. I do very much like this idea of chocolate being honest in the sense that you are selling it for what people really eat it for. It adds a humorous touch which I think would relate with a lot of people (mostly women).