High Spirits: Packaging Design Ideas

We have now received our orders for bottles, corks and coasters, and so can now get stuck into the main bulk of designing for our High Spirits brief. We are meeting up on Monday, and so today I have been working on some rough ideas for the designs of our packaging, as well as some very very rough ideas for bags. Even though we did not make reference to the kite imagery in our logo, I felt like in these sketches I could perhaps try and experiment with it as a tessellated pattern to see if it would work on the packaging itself. I will see what Lisa thinks about it, but to be honest I'm not so sure. The only one using the kite that I think works well is the actual kite shaped label, as it is quite striking and may make our packaging stand out. However, the amount of space isn't as effective as it would be on a traditional label, so these may have to be digitised first to see which works most. 

I also tried to include the kite shape in a more subtle way, using it as an edging on the square labels, which I think could be quite a nice detail to add to the packaging. On these labels I thought more about our idea to use older victorian etching imagery or collage imagery as a background, with 1 colour being used for the images and another bolder colour used for the text as a contrast. However, this may end up looking too busy, so again we'll probably have to digitise them first and see which works better. 

Because we are trying to communicate that this is a light hearted branded, I also looked at how the bags we provide to the customer could be made to look different and more fun. I tried to mess around with the idea of a hot air balloon for a bag, although in reality I'm not sure how on Earth this could work!

Brief 2: Spelling Bee Research

For my Spelling Bee brief, I have decided to focus solely on the Scripps National Spelling Bee which takes place annually in America, as I believe that this is probably the main source of information on the subject, especially as it dates back to the 1920's. This will allow me to have enough content to actually be able to create a publication out of it. Here in this document is just information that I have taken off the Scripps website, including the history of the organisation and a list of the winning words and champions from all the finals. I think that the list of winning words could be a really interesting part of the book, and could give me room to experiment with type, layout and format.

Brief 1: Polka Dot Visual Research

I have started to collect a selection of imagery of famous women and models wearing polka dot garments so that I can begin to gather visual ideas and possible content for the exhibition itself. I intend to use fashion magazines and do more in depth research into different eras of the polka dot, so this is really to kick start it and give me some leads for further investigation.

Brief 6: High Spirits Progress

During our meeting today, me and Lisa were researching into and buying the materials we will need to for our final outcomes. These included corks, bottles and cork products that we can use as business cards. We now have corks, square 500ml bottles and cork coasters heading our way.

We have decided that we will laser cut a stencil of our logo and then use this stencil to apply the logo using metallic sprays, as this will probably be easier and cheaper for us to do, as well as achieving a nice effect, similar to this project below.

We will design the packaging when we receive the bottles, so that we can work with the dimensions of them, and from this we will be able to work on the rest of our products as we want everything to have a cohesive style.

Brief 6: More Packaging Research

Brief 1: Research into Polka Dots

America's love affair with the polka dot began, perhaps, in 1926, when Miss America was photographed in a polka dot swimsuit. Shortly after, in 1928, Disney introduced its cartoon darling Minnie Mouse wearing a red polka dot dress and matching bow. Throughout the 1930s, polka dot dresses appeared in stores, the fabric suddenly subversive, nipped in by ribbons and accentuated with bows. In 1940, the woozy melody of Frank Sinatra’s ballad “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” captured the height of America’s polka dot mania—that spring, the Los Angeles Times assured its readers, “You can sign your fashion life away on the polka-dotted line, and you'll never regret it.”

Later in the decade, the polka dot accrued a highbrow style currency when Christian Dior released his “New Look” collection of hourglass dresses, many styles bedecked with dots. After a wartime period of shifting gender roles, Dior told Vogue that his collection sought “to make women extravagantly, romantically, eyelash-battingly female” again. (Dior: not a fan of the polka dots on Rosie the Riveter’s headband.) Hollywood followed feminine suit, and the newly-ladylike print fast became popular with actresses: Elizabeth Taylor, Lucille Ball, and Marilyn Monroe were some of the polka dot’s chief exponents.

In 1951, Monroe was famously photographed wearing a polka dot bikini. Nine years later, the release of Brian Hyland’s hit song, “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” brought polka dots back into vogue. Throughout the ‘60s, the artist–and walking medley of polka dots–Yayoi Kusama became known for the busy dotted swarms that covered her paintings. “Our earth is only one polka dot among millions of others,” she once said. Kusama also believed–before she checked herself into a mental hospital in 2006–that when painted with polka dots, the body became “part of the unity of the universe.” Now released, the artist still sports the print.

•••

Once upon a time, spotted prints went by a host of other names. Slate’s Jude Stewart provides an overview: in the 19th century, “Dotted-Swiss referred to raised dots on transparent tulle,” and in France, “quinconce described the diagonal arrangement of dots seen on the 5-side of dice.” Meanwhile, “[t]he large coin-sized dots on fabric, called Thalertupfen in German, got their name from Thaler, the currency of German-speaking Europe until the late 1800s.”

But then came the polka, the dance so popular that mid-19th century Europe came up with the word “polkamania” to describe its own excitement. As the polka craze swept west across the continent, enthusiasts claimed the polka jacket, then the polka hat (neither of them spotted), and finally, the polka dot. There is only a tenuous connection between dot and dance, yet surely the two are linked—it’s possible that polka dots reflect the same regulated, short bursts of energy that inflect the polka itself. Regardless, we know that the American women’s magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book was the first to print the term, in an 1857 description of a “scarf of muslin, for light summer wear, surrounded by a scalloped edge, embroidered in rows of round polka dots.”

The word “polka” itself derives from the Polish for “Polish woman”—in Czech, it translates to “little woman or girl.” Polka dots are inherently diminutive, automatically feminine. Today, when we wear them, we inherit their complicated legacy from the women that have worn them before us—women who have negotiated the shifting realm of trying to rock a dot and be taken seriously at the same time. As Elle Woods' college counselor famously said, "Harvard won't be impressed that you aced History of Polka Dots."

•••

Of course, there aren’t just dotty women. In 1962, Marvel Comics unleashed its polka dot-clad superhero—Polka-Dot Man, who used the power of polka dots to defeat baddies. In 1965, Bob Dylan appeared on the cover of the EP for “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” in a striking green polka dot shirt. Much later, in an episode of Mad Men (in which nearly all the female characters have worn polka dots), Roger Sterling donned a spotted maroon silk scarf. In recent years, the print has become increasingly popular with men, with celebrities like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lionel Messi, and Mickey Avalon embracing the trend, as well as the (female) designer Rei Kawakubo of the fashion house Comme des Garçons, who has applied polka dots to brogues, shirts, tees and wallets among other men’s fashion items.

“Polka dots need not be emasculating,” said Anna Akbari, wardrobe consultant and founder of the styling business Closet Catharsis. Akbari, who teaches a course entitled “Fashion and Power” at NYU, added that men wearing polka dots “demonstrates that they pay attention to fashion, that they’re fashion-focused.” Other renowned male advocates of the polka dot include Marc Jacobs, with his “Dotty” collection and Dot perfume (jasmine, orange blossom and honeysuckle), and the artist Damien Hirst, notorious for his sterile, vertigo-inducing dot paintings.

And you can’t talk about dots in art without talking about Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. The Pointillists saw the world in dots and composed entire masterpieces out of them, applying miniature freckles of paint to fill an image. But pointillism was viewed as non-serious; the technique, despite its required precision and dexterity, was dismissed as immature. Nevertheless, some great painters have been Pointillists; Maximilien Luce, Camille Pisarro, Van Gogh, Roy Lichtenstein and Chuck Close have all dabbled in the medium.

Before pointillism’s heyday, polka dots featured more conventionally in art, reflecting nothing more than each epoch’s fashion. In Monet’s Luncheon on the Grass (1865-6), a glamorous lady is pictured donning a delicate, frilled white dress speckled with small blue polka dots, and in Frédéric Bazille’s Family Reunion (1867), both young girls in the family portrait wear white frocks with blue dots and ribbons. The subjects of Berthe Morisot’s The Sisters (1869) are dressed in identical white polka dot ensembles—in this decade, it was custom to wear polka dots in white and blue. Variation came later, shown in Jozsef Rippl-Ronai’s Lady in a Polka-Dot Dress (1889), in which a smartly dressed young woman roaming about town appears in a brown colored frock festooned with large, bold, cream polka dots.

Although the subjects of these paintings are well-to-do young women, in the first known photograph of polka dot garb from 1865, the woman wearing them is sweeping the floor in a baggy polka dot shirt tucked into a striped skirt with a polka dot apron, similar to the dotted items purchased by the writer Elizabeth L. Banks in Campaigns of Curiosity: Journalistic Adventures of an American Girl in London (1894), who “bought a black and white polka-dot blouse and apron for work in the laundry.” At the time, polka dots were considered to be provocative simply because of their novelty, but perhaps what’s more audacious is that the lady pictured is grinning; smiling wasn’t then deemed appropriate photo etiquette. Of course, certain enthusiasts might say that it’s hard not to smile in polka dots.

•••

Today, polka dots inevitably conjure the past. “There’s definitely a nostalgia associated with polka dots,” Akbari said. “I think of the ‘50s and ‘60s. With the rise of vintage, it makes sense that polka dots would be revived.” Yet this nostalgia is complicated. In the rockabilly scene, polka dots make a certain statement about femininity—nodding back to the era of JFK, stress-smoking and stay-at-home wives, while also holding a middle finger up to it. For many feminists, what attracts us to the polka dot also repels.

I asked Akbari about the best occasions to wear polka dots, and she wondered aloud about the suitability of wearing the print to a job interview. “Let's say you're interviewing at a law firm, you probably wouldn't want to wear polka dots,” she suggested. Yet, “in other professions where you want to show you're creative,” she added, “polka dots are great.” What about on a date? Akbari said that polka dots make good date wear, because “they communicate a playful femininity, a girlishness.”

Does it matter that playful femininity is no longer de rigueur? How many women avoid the polka dot because they want to leave its associations behind? On men, the print might seem a forward-looking statement, yet polka dots seem to hurtle the women wearing them back into the past–either hoisting us into the speckled aprons of the 1860s, or else squeezing us into the next century’s itsy bitsy teenie weenie bikinis. How can we change our spots if we’re still wearing them?

Our clothes transmit a message, and sometimes it is necessary to lodge a polka dot defense. In a Glamour interview, Zooey Deschanel said: “There is not an ounce of me that believes any of that crap… We can’t be feminine and be feminists and be successful? I want to be a fucking feminist and wear a fucking Peter Pan collar. So fucking what?”

As a proud polka dot lover, I like to think that the same applies to my favorite print, which is still as performative as the dance from which it takes its name. When I wear polka dots, I speak through them, rather than letting them speak for me. Dressed in polka dots, I’m always myself, but also in character; an amalgam of dotty ladies: Gwen Stefani in the “Don’t Speak” video, Adelaide from Guys and Dolls, Joan Harris and Peggy Olson both, Mindy Kaling in The Mindy Project, Margaret Sullavan inThe Shop Around the Corner, and Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. Occasionally I'll even recognize my late great-grandmother in my navy blue polka dot dress. I think of her in her similar frock, which was royal blue with white dots, just a little more matronly. My yiayia—ardent cook, knitting enthusiast, devout Greek Orthodox churchgoer and centenarian at the time of her death­—was of another time, and she held wholly different beliefs and values to my own. Yet when I wear our mutually beloved print, I feel, somehow, Kusama's dotty "unity of the universe” flickering and bursting between us.

This was written by Chloe Pantazi and taken from The Hairpin. 

Brief 6: Logo Design ideas

Me and Lisa made a lot of progress with our logo designs today, evaluating both our efforts and deciding what direction to take next, which was really useful and we managed to get a lot more ideas down for the next few weeks. We are also sticking to our time plan at the moment which is always a plus.

The logos that we experimented with ended up using the motif of a ladder to signify the high in high spirits, which I think works more than my first idea of a kite because the shape was quite burdensome to use in the end. We have also incorporated the serif and sans serif typefaces to relate to our desire to make this brand traditional with a modern twist. We want it to look very luxe to aim at our target market, which is why we have chosen metallic colours, which we ideally want to foil onto our business cards and packaging, as well as creating a stamp.

 The idea for the business card to be created in cork and as a circular coaster came from Lisa, as this creates a distinction between us and other brands, as well as being a useful promotional product. We intend to use cork as an element of our designs, and we are going to try and source some that looks a little more sophisticated such as the pattern we have on our development boards.

Brief 6: Initial Logo Ideas

Me and Lisa decided that before our next meeting we would each work on some ideas for logo designs for High Spirits. Agreeing that we want to create something traditional but with a modern twist, I wanted to try and look at using two different typefaces, perhaps one serif and one sans serif to create some kind of contrast, however, when I got down to drawing and thinking up ideas, I started to focus more on the 'high' bit of our name and started trying to play around with that, so the type that I have been drawing as been tall or stretched a little, although it still needs developing and Lisa and I need to decide whether we would want to go for something with a more traditional typeface, or a more modern sans serif.

I also tried to think of images that would represent 'high' - I made the mistake of simply typing this into google and it just came up with a lot of bongs, real helpful, Google - with a view to including it in our logo, but almost everything was either too detailed for a logo like views from tall buildings or kind of detracted from the brand, like iconic buildings (Eiffel Tower, Empire State). I started thinking about Mary Poppins and her umbrella (although I'm pretty sure that Disney would sue us if we used that) and hot air balloons, but again the shapes are too detailed for a logo. I wanted a simple shape that could be incorporated in some way, and circles seemed too obvious. I started thinking about triangle shapes to somehow represent the alcohol or glasses, but then finally I happened upon the kite diamond shape as a possibility. This seems to fit at the moment because kite's fly, which ties into the high part of our title, but in a more subtle way. Should we want to use pattern in our work as well, the kite shape works well as it can be tessellated.

Thinking about it, I probably 'happened upon it' because I started humming to Let's Go Fly a Kite by Mary Poppins, so not really an individual thought, just another idea gleamed from Disney.

Obviously it all needs refining and drawing up far better than this, these images are just very very rough sketches.

Brief 6: Greenbar Collective Distillery

Greenbar Collective Distillery are an American company producing organic, hand crafted spirits. The collective represent the largest portfolio of spirits, and each of their spirits has a distinctive design. As I found looking at other brands with different products, the main way they communicate the differences is through colour, although they also use interesting illustrations that add to the desirability of the product. The designs are mainly very contemporary, but are more detailed than many label designs which are often more simplistic, using mostly type. I love the Fruitlab bottles, but am less keen on the Bar Keep bottles because they feel quite cluttered, and the typefaces don't really seem to fit with the illustrations being used. I think finding these designs was valauble though because it gives us an idea of what other brands have done with similar products, and also allows Lisa and I to identify aspects of the design that we would and wouldn't like to use in our own work. 
images sourced from thedieline

Brief 6: Primary Research

I went to Booths to photograph their range of gins, vodkas and rums. They have a wide selection of gin and vodka, less so with the rum. I photographed packaging that I felt reflected our ideas for the High Spirits brief: luxe and high quality. What I did notice from researching into the packaging already out there is that many of the bottles use foiling and metallic colours to set themselves apart from the cheaper brands, and the bottles used were more unusually shaped, again to distinguish themselves and make their products more desirable. The heritage brands had much busier labels, whilst the more contemporary brands used sans serif typography and a more minimalist approach.

Brief 6: Consistency in Packaging

Because me and Lisa are creating a series of products that would hypothetically all be distilled/produced and sold by us, we need to create a series of labels that have consistency whilst also communicating the differences between the products that we make. I have tried to find examples of packaging that was created as part of series to look at how they successfully retain consistency in their designs.

The Industry City Distillery is the creation of The City Foundry who are a research and design group (apparently). You can kind of tell they're from Brooklyn reading their description of themselves which I found on this blog post. But they've made some very nice packaging so I can't judge them too much. The main difference in the designs of the different vodkas is the colour, which I kind of assumed would be the main way to communicate variety, other than that the packaging is very simple and bold, and it manages to reference traditional alcohol label design through use of the smaller red typeface, although really this is a very contemporary design. 

Again, the most noticeable difference between these bottles of Scrappy's Bitters is the colour, although there are smaller differences between the bottles such as the shapes housing the descriptive type, which adds a little more interest, but also serves a practical purpose as each of the titles varies in length and so the design obviously needed to be adapted. The design of these bottles is more traditional, using illustrations, etched backgrounds and serif typefaces to create something that feels a little more collectable and old timey. I like the little bit of gold foiling they have used on the label as well, it adds a nice touch and I'm a sucker for gold foiling anyways.   

Again, these Art in the Age Of bottles use colour as the main identifier between the different spirits, but what I liked about these is the designs they have applied to the back of the bottles, which are a surprising contrast to the front of the bottle which is quite contemporary and simple. It would be interesting to try and use a mix of illustration and type on our own label designs, although it would likely be in a simpler style than this. 
All images have been taken from thedieline

Brief 6: High Spirits Alcohol Packaging Research

These are a selection of images that have been taken from the website of design studio Stranger and Stranger, who specialise in packaging design for alcohol brands. This is a small selection of what is actually on their site, but I was trying to select labels that have a style similar to how Lisa and I want our branding to look, with a mix of old and new, traditional and modern. Personally, Hangar vodka, Jack Daniels and Kraken Rum's label designs are the ones that inspire me the most as I think they have the best blend of traditional label design but with a fresher take. They also seem the most luxe and desirable, and have more unique bottle shapes, which I think adds to their appeal. 

Brief 6: High Spirits Initial Ideas

Today me and Lisa had a discussion about the direction that we want our brief to take, as well as creating a time plan for our work until the proposed deadline. Me and Lisa had sourced some images to show to each other so that we knew the kind of style that we were going for, and from this we plan to create some initial logo designs, which we will bring together and then go from there.
Notes were made in my notebook, but so that whoever reads this can actually read these notes, I'm just typing them up.

The Shop
HIGH SPIRITS
Independent and small
Traditional style with a modern twist.
Specialists in gin, vodka and rum which would be distributed in barrels similar to the smaller shops within Selfridges that sell special liquors.
Other alcohols/ brands would be stocked.
Location: London (Carnaby Street)

Target Audience
Middle class
Disposable income
Alcohol Lovers
Young Professionals

Products
Logo
Business card
Packaging labels
Bags
Signage
Stickers
Advertising
Promotional catalogue

Tone of Voice/Style
Light hearted and humorous
Traditional but modern
Illustrative style

Timeplan
Logo done by: 17th/18th October
Full concept and drawings of initial packaging: 24th October
Label and Packaging Design: 7th November
Shop front and web proposal: 14th November
To print and final edits: 22nd November
Photography of Products: 28th/29th November
Submission boards: December

Brief 6: High Spirits Mood Boards

These are just some mood boards that have initial design research that I will be showing to Lisa, so that we can get a better idea of the kind of style that we want our shop to have. I have tried to find a range of potential products, such as store signage, branding collateral and packaging design, so that we can also discuss the products that we want to create. The images I have chosen reflect the style of design that I find inspiring and the direction that I would like to take with this project. Of course, me and Lisa will discuss the images we have collected to try and find a style we are both happy with.

Brief 9: D&AD Copywriting

(Brief yet to be released.)

Brief 10: Wireless Connections

Brief 8: Penguin Adult's Prize

Brief 7: Penguin Children's Prize

Brief 6: High Spirits

Brief 5: Amass Bathroom Products

Brief 4: Coming of Age Film Festival

Brief 3: Heartbroken Records

Brief 2: Spelling Bee

Brief 1: Polka Dots An Exhibition

Statement of Intent

This is my (mostly) completed statement of intent. Some of the categories, such as the Context of Practice bibliography are not as detailed as I would like because obviously I am still undertaking research and will not have a definitive bibliography until that and my extended essay has been completed.