ARTG 371 - Project 2 Final Application
The final week! Printing the final design elements for my branded series was quite stressful, because I wanted to make sure it all worked. However, my friend Sam has a pretty great printing setup that I was fortunate enough to use. This allowed me to do a TON of practice prints before committing to using the sticker paper (that Sam also had on hand!). This ended up being a 6 hour process involving a lot of trial and error, a lot of error. (pictured below)
After getting feedback last week from my classmates, and some of the first-years, I had a clearer direction that I wanted to go with my package design. I tried a few different layouts with my prototypes (pictured below). Overall, most people agreed that the pattern worked best on the bottom of the bottle. When it was higher up, it got lost, and on a store shelf, the product wouldn't catch consumers' eyes. Having the pattern on the bottom also helps ground the package and give it a base. It was also agreed upon that the logo with just one accent colour used in the "å" was most effective.
I next made the decision to put the product information, UPC code, ingredients, and nutrition facts all on one sticker element, rather than separating them all as I had originally planned. When they were all separate, they appeared to sort of just be floating around the bottle. Including them together also gave me another opportunity to implement the accent colour!
When printing the final stickers out for my product, I ran into a few issues. After doing quite a few test prints to figure out sizing and placement for all the elements, I printed the final copies on the matte sticker paper. Unfortunately, we only had two pieces of this paper. This meant when the stickers had some errors (more errors!) I had to decide between using them or opting for other paper options. I ended up using the matte paper for the wrap around elements, despite some minor mis-prints. For the other elements though, I ended up having to use glossy paper. I felt that this created a bit of a busier design since there was so many paper textures on one product. This was one of the areas I was disappointed in for my final outcome. However, I think the paper texture for the patterns turned out very lovely! (process images below, wine included in the process)
I used Mod Podge to secure the patterned paper to the bottles (pictured above) and held them secure with rubber bands over night to dry. While I waited for them to dry, I began concocting the "glaze" that would be going in the bottles. My vision was to create a thick dark liquid with subtle colour differences to represent the different flavours. I originally thought using glue would work well for the texture, but did not want to buy a ton of liquid glue just for this project. Instead I opted for water, food colouring and cornstarch.
This is where another error was made. The cornstarch and water didn't really combine and always ended up separating. After leaving the "glazes" out over night, I decided that I preferred the darker colour of just the water and dye. I then dumped the coloured water into the corresponding bottles, and disposed of the cornstarch sludge. The texture certainly isn't "glaze-y", but I think the colour of the product will work a lot better for pictures and presentation.
The final error in my process was accidentally getting a piece of a pour-spout stuck inside one of the bottles. I poured the "glaze" in hoping that it would hide the piece, but, lo and behold, the piece floated. I then poured out the liquid and assessed my options. I had already tried using tweezers, scissors, and needle-nose pliers. After a quick internet search, I pushed a plastic bag into the bottle, blew air into the bag to expand it, and was able to use that tension to pull the plastic bit out of the bottle. A great life hack to add to the repertoire.
For the amount of time and effort I put into this project, I wish I could say I was totally stoked with the final outcome. I feel that the products are visually nice, but they feel somewhat unfinished and incohesive. I'm also struggling with the amount of negative space on the bottles (the urge to fill negative space is something I need to work oon) and feel that they are missing a final design element to balance it all out. I think I will print some single illustrations of the flavours tomorrow to see if adding those helps me feel better about the design. Time will tell!
