PRACTICE

Packaging Design

GOAL

Refine the identity and reinvent the packaging design

INDUSTRY

Food & Beverage

Challenge

The founder of Fermenting Fairy started her food & beverage line after being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in 2014. After experimenting with plant-based products to treat her condition, she developed her own recipes and launched “Fermenting Fairy” and 10 products. The original package designs reflected the resources she had available at the time of starting the company. She approached us after her products gained a following, however exposure to major and boutique food stores like Sprouts and Erewhon had buyers compelling her that the package didn’t adequately compete or reflect the product efficacy. It is a complex time in the beverage industry. Many new drinks are capitalizing on health trends yet the FDA is very stringent on what can be claimed. Products with CBD tout different health claims, Kombucha drink variations are plentiful. The variety of designs all are competing for shelf presence. The simple challenge these products have is to stand out in their category and look tasty. This is not easy to do with so many new products flooding the market. Finally, also connect all this with the Fermenting Fairy brand vision.

Solution

It’s always a tenuous balance between solving the problem and creating a design that fits with a client’s vision for how they see their brand evolving. This delicate back and forth is something that takes a tremendous amount of compromise and patience. After detailed research; looking at products on the shelves at key retailers, we developed many design directions we felt could both adequately compete as well as provide a path-forward aligned with the FF brand. We also proposed a redraw the typographic identity. We saw this as a critical component to the legibility of the brand on shelves. As this brand was somewhat new, we were able to explore and propose several evolutionary and revolutionary design directions that provided our client with a range of visual options to consider. The final choice balanced simplicity and legibility with a re-emphasis on the identity.