Friday colour – pink

Posted on August 15, 2014 by caitlinziegler

I have a love-hate relationship with pink. A soft yet striking suits-everyone hue; yet walk down the ‘girl’ aisle in any toy store and it’s enough to put you off pink for life.

Here’s a collection of pink.

Looking for more colour inspiration? Here’s our post on how to choose the perfect colour for your brand. Here’s some ways to work with copper too.

Quirky packaging – picked up at my local Asian deli

Posted on June 19, 2014 by caitlinziegler

Walk into most Asian deli/specialty shops, head to the ‘snack’ section and you will see one thing: Colour. Big, bold, bright colour. Cartoons and characters, crazy type and illustrated contents. And pink. Lots of pink.

A style is clear in the mayhem, directly influenced by its target market. Chips, biscuits, soft drinks, lollies; they’re not traditional products, but they are the special little luxuries for the young. And it’s a bit addictive – all that colour and cutesy.

I spent a long time perusing the aisles of my local specialty shop and I picked these packages because I loved their quirky boldness and (relative) simplicity.

Missed our last post on packaging design? Check out some great typography in packaging here.

Packaged biscuits

For all the clashing colours and multiple imagery going on, this design actually looks fairly clean and simple. All the flat graphics help push the photo of the biscuits out – and compositionally it’s well balanced. What I loved about it was the little food mascots on the back; who knew that radishes moonlight selling carrots, or that penguins were well-versed in the joys of capsicum (red peppers)?!

Apple drink

This one was a bit different from its brightly shouting counterparts – the colours more subtle, the information pared back. The background graphic of the apples made me think of ye-olde botanical illustrations, which of course was the reason I bought it. Who can resist a beautifully drawn apple?

Pocky

There were lots of colours to choose from here, including a Barbie-pink strawberry flavour. I love the bold simplicity of this one. On the shelf it really stood out, a big block of colour in amongst multicoloured competition. I also think the product illustration is clever – it’s dynamic and showcases the contents without needing extra styling. It made me think of pick-up-sticks, so it also won nostalgia points.

Caramel Corn (Strawberries and cream flavour)

I’m not sure what to make of this product – they’re basically strawberry-flavoured sugar-coated chips. A bit like Fruit Loops. But they are more-ish, and if your packaging looks like it is happily chowing down on its own contents then I guess that’s a positive!

Fruity-Honey Bear lollies

I love the illustration on this one. And it jumped out on the rack. There’s something oddly seemless in the merging of the vector-based bear graphic and the photographed fruit and honey; the texture is well matched and the composition works. And I love a banner element.

Jasmine Tea

So this one doesn’t really fit with the others, but I loved the tin. The yellow is gorgeous and the simple type means this becomes a great gift item rather than just a pantry restock. The French wording on alternating sides makes it feel a bit special – I wish more packaging took this approach rather that whacking the translated product information underneath.

Want more design? Have a look at some great book covers here or look at our review of Supergraph! here

Friday colour palette – How to use copper: 7x complementary colour pairs

Posted on June 13, 2014 by caitlinziegler

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Interior trends have been all over copper this last year; exposed copper pipes, dipped copper trinkets, copper paint, copper prints. There is a lovely warmth to copper, and it makes a great base or highlight for a contemporary palette.

Here are some complementary colours for copper.