This brief asked that I produce a chocolate bar wrapper. I was to design all the flat elements, then bring them together to give them dimension and layout in relation to each other on a foil wrapper mock-up.

The bar had to be designed with fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) packaging in mind. These products are low cost, and sell fast, usually on impulse near the counter. Net profit on these goods are low, so the profit comes from selling in volumes. This bar had to be designed to look delectable to the target consumers.

I went in different directions for my two concept ideas. The first is very much targeted to people who only eat natural, organic healthy foods. While it's still a FMCG, it is a bit alternative. The concept I got the client go-ahead from is more wham-bam in your face with swooshes and bold type. It is more aligned with their target market.  

I did market research to decide on colours and layout. Bounty, for instance, has a predominantly blue colour scheme with some brown and a tiny bit of green. It has foliage and coconuts and a beach to put emphasis on the 'island' theme. 

I knew early in the process I wanted a lot of blue, some brown and bright text in a desaturated cream colour. The green in the foliage on the Cocococoa Bar came toward the end of the designing when it just needed that bit extra to bring the bar to life.

I selected the foil wrapper mock-up before I began so I knew what dimensions to design to and how to layout the text. 

I knew going in to this edit that the candy bar would have other elements so I had a few basic things I wanted to fix. Smoothing, fixing blemishes and adding flecks.

I smoothed the chocolate with the clone stamp tool and a slight gaussian blur. To get back some definition I duplicated the layer, used high pass, then set that layer to opacity. I added flecks of white for the coconut pieces. I used masking to brush the opacity out slightly in places to mimic where it would be naturally darker due to shadows. Then I duplicated the flecks and added a slight inner shadow, which really gave it dimension.

I noticed on other chocolate bars and chocolate-bar-type products that they sometimes had a corner of a differing colour. I realised this would create some a dynamic aspect to the design by drawing attention to an interesting fact about the ingredient. 

This element began in Illustrator. I drew a triangle, then lots of little triangles and cut them out of the big triangle. When I placed it in Photoshop I masked out the excess so it would only show on the parts that had the foil wrapper behind it. I added a layer in soft light, then added a drop shadow to make it look like it popped off the page and a gradient so the inner corner would be bright and contrasted under the typography. I added a duplicate layer and set it to color simply to get the cream shade that wasn't possible from soft light. Lastly, the text has a gradient added so the lightness and darkness of the grooves in the foil wrapper underneath is mimicked on top to enhance believability.

Once I had the shape and layout of the product title, it needed lots of editing in Photoshop to make it pop. I created attention and movement by creating a huge outer bevel. The title really looks like it's sticking out at the consumer.

Above, I've screenshotted the detail in the layers that went into making the logotype POP!

The title now had dimension and form added but the background needed a not-so-subtle draw of the eye. I wanted there to be a glow like a vortex, drawing in the consumer.

I created this glow manually. It has layers of a big brush (hardness set to 0%) in a light, desaturated cream then various brushes layered in different sizes and angles to create streams of light. It is made up of three layers of different shapes at varying opacities to achieve this look.

These are early Illustrator revisions.

This is the final draft of the elements in Illustrator.

Next, I brought the elements into Photoshop to add effects. Below are deconstructions of the elements.

For reference, here are the original images used.

I must say the first part of this project where I created the elements in Illustrator were difficult for me. I am comfortable with difficult photo manipulations in Photoshop but I am still at an intermediate level in Illustrator. Sometimes getting the type or objects to do what I envisioned was hard (such as joining the swoosh to the 'B').

I also had to do much trial and error with the stroke of the title in Illustrator and Photoshop. As shown in drafts, it went through many changes before I settled on the final.

This project taught me the importance of legibility and designing a product for specific market expectations.

When I first created the title 'Cocococoa Bar' it was much smaller. After client feedback, we discussed that it wouldn't pop on supermarket shelves unless it was bigger – the typeface is legible as is. 

Many designs are meant to look effortless, subtle even, but this FMCG product is in a section of supermarket placement that needs to grab attention. I was surprised by what this design demanded of me. For E.G. I used a gradient fill, a bevel highlight/shadow and drop shadows on the title alone. More really is more. However, the elements and design style usually involves uncomplicated aspects such as exploding glows behind type, bold stroke outlines, simple gradient backgrounds.

Before future projects I would definitely watch more YouTube or Lynda.com tutorials for Illustrator skill building so I could more efficiently get to the result I desired more quickly.

I learnt a lot about FMCG goods and designing for supermarket shelves. Plus, I loved the design thought process that went into designing for printed packaging. I definitely improved my understanding and the importance of legibility as the number one focus. It was interesting to create a hierarchy for the other elements in the design.

I'm excited to apply this cohesive market-design knowledge to a future poster/packaging project.

Blazek, L 2017, Fresh wood garlic on wood, photograph, viewed 23 October 2017, <https://unsplash.com/photos/EWDvHNNfUmQ>.

Burgwal, W, n.d. [Coconut] ID: 83963722, photograph, viewed 27 September 2017, <https://depositphotos.com/83963722.html>.

Chocolate, n.d. photograph, viewed 17 October 2017, <https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1387179>.

Samokhin, R, n.d. [wrapper] ID: 68036757, photograph, viewed 27 September 2017, <https://depositphotos.com/68036757.html>.

Zimny, B 2017, Leaf, photograph, viewed 17 October 2017, <https://unsplash.com/photos/W5XTTLpk1-I>.