The thought process

FLAVORS FOR WATER

MADDIE
This was an idea that came out of the frustration all new American mom’s face when they try to find drinks suitable for their child. A drink, other than water, that isn’t filled with refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors and colorings, or worse – all of these.

MADDIE

FLAVRZ founder, entrepreneur Lisa, wanted to create a concentrated drink mix, something that was for the whole family. This is not a new idea in Europe where there are a multitude of dilutable juices on the market, but in the US it didn't exist. Flavored waters had become popular with adults recently, but not so much with kids because they were often very subtle. Something that was organic and dilutable to taste was the way to go. Next, she wanted low sugar content to minimise blood sugar spikes. She found the answer in agave, a natural sugar alternative.

Lisa also had environmental concerns and wanted the packaging to address these. Concentrated already meant significantly less packaging, which meant less fuel for transportation. Natural ingredients and no chemicals helped the land and, finally, glass bottles minimized waste because they would be recycled.

The product itself was a delicious, almost clear liquid. Some flavors appeared a little darker, but in essence thay had no real color so I decided it was possible to use colored glass. I liked blue glass bottles because they make me think of water, which was the first step and, by concealing the liquid, differentiated it from ready to drink products. I also wanted to create something that was memorable and easy to describe should you be recommending the product but forget the name - “It comes in a blue bottle - you can’t miss it.”

Lisa considered making the product available in little sachets, which influenced the final choice of label design.

colorways

The client chose to develop the SOS dots and dashes. Budget constraints meant sourcing an existing bottle. Also, the label had to be a simple paper band (no printing on the glass).

I used every opportunity to promote the new label so business cards, postcards etc... were all the label, scaled to fit. They began with three flavors. So everyone had three different colored business cards.

CARDS

Add Letterhead here

 

After the business stationery, I designed the rest of the label, wrote the label copy and designed the first tri-fold brochure. Then I started looking at approaches for the website.

BROCHURE

Eau eau eau it's magic...

 

 

WEBPAGE DRAFT

Sketch for a homepage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What the client did:

After the first trade show, the client decided to go with a completely different design(er) that illustrated the act of mixing the water and the flavor on the front of the label, because they were not confident that customers would know what to do if the illustration wasn't front and center.

MADDIE

It's still a great product ;-)

 

F L A V R Z


PRACTICAL EXAMPLE #5 - DESIGN AND CREATIVE WRITING

The brief: Design the packaging for a new drink.

blue glass

 

 

sos

Morse code for SOS (Help)

For the brand/label I explored several approaches. The first was based on the morse code for SOS – the feeling you experience when you try to find a suitable safe family drink (in the US), then I explored a layered, overlapping translucent colors (reflecting the change in intensity and the fact you could mix flavors). Acronyms was the third. Then there was a narrative version, because the product had so many interesting qualities.

Here are the sketches:

 

concepts

The bold designs took into account that American kids are brand aware by about two years old, and brand conscious by around five years old. I wanted the design to look strong enough to stand against the big ready-to-drink brands. I also didn't want it to look babyish so that it could be outgrown.

BLUE BOTTLE

 

POURER

intensity

 

pourerBOTTLES

 

POSTERS

PRESSPACKS

Press packs

 

flying bottles

 

 


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