Pepper Nectar Hot Sauce

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Pepper Nectar

Pepper Nectar Hot Sauce is a woman-owned craft hot sauce company forged in Fort Myers, Florida. Their unique line-up of gourmet sauces deliver strong heat and a whole lot of flavor by using quality ingredients and exciting taste combos. With a company of hard-core hot sauces fans, Hype was thrilled to partner with Rachael White, Pepper Nectar's owner, to establish a badass brand identity that could match up to such a killer product and develop the packaging system for her bottles.

Branding

From the first meeting with Rachael, Hype saw the passion that forged the concept of Pepper Nectar. Though the client had a logo and white label system to use in the interim, there was an opportunity to tell a deeper story and give the brand the visual personality it deserved. As the majority of Pepper Nectar's customer base purchased the product directly from Rachael at markets and events, we felt it was important that the visuals reflect her character and sense of humor in order to stand out. We dove deeper by learning more about how these hot sauces were made, what set them apart, and what would "sauce" them up on the shelf as the company grew.

This led us to create a custom logo mark paired with a blackletter logotype and a suite of illustrated assets to highlight flavors on label designs. We rooted the brand in a vibrant color palette and built out some suggested applications that could be used at markets and events along with the sauces. The team created playful phrases like "Stay Saucy" and "Get Lost in the Sauce" that were applied to tote bags and enamel pins.

Packaging

With the primary focus of the brand being the bottle wraps themselves, we worked to find a balance between affordable production of the labels and a unique design that would be easy to apply to a varietal sauce line-up. With minimal space on a 5oz sauce bottle, the creative team made sure to let the brand take the lead but also leave lots of real estate to call out the sauce's flavor profile and ingredients. Using custom illustrated icons and monospaced type, we were able to tell the story of Pepper Nectar and show people that its Original flavor in particular was "The Pair-All Hot Sauce." This structure was applied to other recipes as well, which include Duke of Biber and Queen of Green.

Photography

We couldn't wrap up our work on this project without capturing its unique vibe with a custom shoot. With a variety of set-ups, we focused on highlighting the vibrance of the sauce flavors with poppy colors, hella ingredients, and bit of organized chaos. And while food prep on such a spicy shoot may have caused us to shed a tear or two, our team only has tears of joy looking at the results of a beautiful brand that now looks as fire as it tastes.