Zam-buk was selected as a brand because of its history within South Africa and how it has become a staple product that is used amongst most South Africans as their ointment or lip balm of choice. It has also considered a product that is tried and tested through generations spanning from the 1900s which shows a rich brand history in the country.
South Africa is home to over 5 million Setswana speakers and this provides a new intersection for Zam-buk’s consumers and South African culture. With this in mind we selected Setswana as the indigenous language of choice as we had more knowledge on the language and by extension, we decided to highlight the Tswana ethnic group also focusing on the group’s heritage and culture.
Our reasoning for creating a booklet was based on the premise that it would be distributed alongside the sale of a Zam-buk product. We initially intended for the information featured would include aspects of every culture in the South Africa but we ultimately opted to narrow it down to just the Tswana people. We decided on splitting the book into three segments, each one having a specific colour that is tied to the colours of the three varieties of Zam-buk. These segments include Traditions and Origins represented by green (the colour of the original Zam-buk); Love, family and marriage represented by red (cherry lip balm) and Healing practices represented by blue (chest rub). In Setswana these titles would be ‘Setso’, ‘Lerato, Lenyalo le Lesika’ and ‘Go Alafa’ respectively.
South Africa is home to over 5 million Setswana speakers and this provides a new intersection for Zam-buk’s consumers and South African culture. With this in mind we selected Setswana as the indigenous language of choice as we had more knowledge on the language and by extension, we decided to highlight the Tswana ethnic group also focusing on the group’s heritage and culture.
Our reasoning for creating a booklet was based on the premise that it would be distributed alongside the sale of a Zam-buk product. We initially intended for the information featured would include aspects of every culture in the South Africa but we ultimately opted to narrow it down to just the Tswana people. We decided on splitting the book into three segments, each one having a specific colour that is tied to the colours of the three varieties of Zam-buk. These segments include Traditions and Origins represented by green (the colour of the original Zam-buk); Love, family and marriage represented by red (cherry lip balm) and Healing practices represented by blue (chest rub). In Setswana these titles would be ‘Setso’, ‘Lerato, Lenyalo le Lesika’ and ‘Go Alafa’ respectively.
During our ideation and discussion we aimed to create visual elements that would be representative of particular facets of the Tswana culture and worldview. Throughout the booklet we utilised patterns that mimic the traditional ‘shweshwe’ pattern that is commonly worn amongst all the Tswana people. This was done to tie-in the visual and srtistic aesthetic of the culture and emphasise a celebration of Tswana people in South Africa. We also created illustrations that represents elements and symbols of the Tswana culture such as butterflies which are a symbol of love, the shield, spear and knobkerrie which were tradition weapons with the shape of the shield being the style that the Tswana warriors of old would have used. There are also figures that represent people performing actions relating to the given topic on each page to emphasise the ideas and information found within the booklet. Finally, the title ‘Zam-buk-a’ was created to combine the brand name and the word for ‘book’ in Setswana which is ‘buka’.
