The candy bar brief focused on researching techniques to create a candy bar wrapper. It needed to incorporate, customised lettering, impactful background and polished ingredient imagery. Through research and in class demonstrations students were required to edit food imagery, create layered effects and eye catching type and make it work cohesively.

With my initial ideas I tried to create a pictoral typeface, and also a more script based heading. The pictorial text suffered from an unrefined visual style, it worked okay in the sketch phase but required more finesse with the illustrations, and even then I thought it did not give the polished look I was going for. The script type worked a lot better, and it provided a great basic for me to then create my final version.

In my final design, I purchased the typeface Escafina by Riley Cran. I liked the rounded serifs, the ampersand and thought it had a fun whimsical appearance. To the type I warped the path of the text so that it created a more dynamic composition where the three elements seem to be hugging each other and theres a sense of tension and buoyancy. Behind the text there are two offset paths, one creating the blue backdrop and the other a thin white rim. The three layers were then brought into photoshop and each given bevel and emboss effects to give them a three dimensional appearance.

Here is the typeface Escafina without effects at the top, and then with the warp effect and final layout at the bottom.

For my ingredient shots I focused on the chocolate bar itself, and the coconut. I edited the bar to add the coconut flakes and a dripping coconut cream, I wanted to differentiate my product from other bars on the market like Bounty so I also used white chocolate coating. The coconuts themselves I rendered in a more painterly way and added coconut splashes.

My colour palette consisted of whites, bright teal blues and rusty browns. These colours are first of all complimentary so they work harmoniously together and secondly they are evocative of the ingredients with the brown husk of the coconut and the light blue which is synonymous with packaging to do with coconut products.

Designing a product package that features custom text, hero ingredient imagery and something that would appeal to young children. This is a combination that was new to me and one that I learnt as I went along. From the initial sketches to wrapping designs around packaged mock ups everything needed to change and be tweaked along to way. 

With my first design I wasn't happy with the type and colours I had come up with. The orange was meant to give off a tropical vibe but it ended up being confusing as it just read as a muesli or health food bar, something I noticed when I was researching packaging was how embedded colour coding is with foods. And as much as I wanted my product to be unique, light blue and coconut is just one of those codes. The problem with the type is that it was quite angular even though it was a script typeface, and after I had applied offset paths and embossing, all the effects were lost in the fine detail of the type.

Through this process I learnt that for FMC packaging everything needs to be bolder brighter and more eye catching than things I would usually design. When I received the feedback that my design had to appeal to young children, I went with much bolder type and a tight type lock. My final design is bright, fresh and with curvy expressive type, I feel that the word coconut stands out a lot more and should be eye catching as people walk by the aisles and the coconut splash by the text adds an element of movement to draw people in. 

Techniques I really felt began to master were the Bevel and Emboss features in photoshop which were great in adding depth and 3D to flat shapes, whether to make text come to life and gain reflections and shadows, or to create drips and splashes of liquid. The ability to make custom background imagery with abstract star bursts, halftone patterns and halo effects is also incredibly useful, as I feel more self sufficient in creating these textures and customising them instead of drawing upon stock images that every other designer could download and use.

This project has changed the way I think about layouts, its a very different skillset to design for the 3D environment on surfaces that bulge and pucker in different ways. And all the techniques I learn along the way will continue forth in further projects.