Emily's Graphic Design Blog

At the end of the project, final mock-ups of the packaging were printed. The lower cost product mock-ups were printed in a smaller scale with a laser printer, the actual boxes to be printed professionally to be sold. When printed professionally, a spot varnish would enhance the coloured illustrations and the tree logo would be foiled in gold. For the most expensive 15 year old, I thought the packaging should reflect its age and quality, using a silver foil for the illustration rather than a varnish. To recreate this effect, time was taken to research printers in the area, however, the costs were too high for a small batch, reaching £200.00. Therefore, I recreated the effect at home using foil transfers. Once heated using a laminator, the black laser toner acts as an adhesive for the foil creating the foiled effect. The finish isn't as perfect as it would be professionally printed, with some areas not stuck and therefore remaining black. But it provides a good mock-up of how...

Whilst re-designing their packaging, research was undertaken into other possible packaging ideas or products that could expand the brand, for instance if working with beer, a multipack design. However, the Somerset Cider Brandy is sold in ages rather than flavours, meaning a multipack would provide the same product varying only in the age it was matured. Commonly, brandy is given as gifts, therefore, my research focused on current gift sets of other brands, to gain inspiration. My research led me to gift sets with the brandy sold alongside branded glasses. Thus, I began designing a special gift set with this in mind. I chose to design this using the most expensive 15 year old brandy, as this would be the most appropriate at as gift, however, this could be used across all ages. The box design is very similar to the original, the only difference being the doubled width, making room for the glasses. A window was added to allow the glasses to be seen by the customer, the panel f...

After completing the packaging designs, I moved on to the label designs. Initially, I focused on the same style, to retain continuity. This first design uses a common label style, with a convex arc at the top mirroring the arc of the bottle. However, in print this design was too large and cumbersome for an already bottom heavy bottle. The design features the coloured illustration, again, the colour assigned by its age. On the front label, this is placed similarly to the box designs, whereas, on the back, two layers of the pattern are combined to give a full background and border for the text heavy design. After experimenting with the previously bulky design, a much narrower square label was created, to slim down the bottle and provide a sleek appearance. This shape modernises the bottle, matching it more closely to the tall box design. On the back label, the full border was narrowed to a top and bottom border, giving more height to the label whilst retaining space for the typ...