By: Bill McCool
If you grew up in a home where dinner was a bland mixture of whatever your parents could toss in a pot and boil to death with the only flavorful salvation coming in the form of a few hearty dashes of salt, we feel your pain.
Well, I CAN SPICE is hear to change that with their incredible line of spices meant to give home cooks that feeling they describe as “gastro-wow.” With more than 100 different spices available, the Slovakian spice peddlers turned to the UK’s Dekoratio Branding and Design Studio to create the packaging and identity.
“I CAN SPICE has 8 different categories for their spices,” says Dekoratio designer Szani Mészáros.”My biggest goal was to distinguish them somehow in a way you already get an idea what they contain at first glance. In order to do this, I chose colors to represent each category and drew spices, herbs, and little kitchen supplies. For instance, the vegetable category has mushrooms, carrots, onions, etc. on it. The pepper category has different kinds of chilies, peppers and burning flames on the jar. Obviously, we can’t show all the spices one category has, but you can get an idea about the range from the packages.”
While Szani and I CAN SPICE broke up the entire line into different categories, there’s still a unified look throughout their offerings. “Despite there being so many things to see on the packages,” Sazani says, “I think they come together as one nice family. Unity is crucial, so when you look at one box, you know it’s I CAN SPICE, but when you look at all the boxes, you find them harmonic. So I think the planned visual structure is working pretty well.”
It’s that visual structure that Szani and Dekoratio wanted to focus on as a means of getting home chefs back into the kitchen. I CAN SPICE is all about getting consumers to experiment with new flavor combos— they even have spices to mix into your coffee or beer.
So how do you get cooks to channel their inner David Chang and get excited about cooking using just a bottle of spice?
For starters, you can keep it playful and vibrant. “The client wanted [the spices] to be much more colorful, something that makes you experiment in the kitchen,” Szani says. “So I simplified the logo and developed the illustrations to be rich and full of life.”
“I created one main structure that goes on all the boxes,” Szani adds, “but the details around it are always different depending on the category. So the little plants, spices and ingredients are changing, except the mix categories, where I put all of the drawings together, thus referring to its name.”
For shoppers looking to break beyond the salt and pepper, Szani’s design for I CAN SPICE will inspire both foodies and amateur culinary artists in kitchens the world over. Now go out and fill that spice rack of yours, you aspiring Julia Child.
Bill McCool
Bill McCool is a freelance writer based out of Los Angeles. Though new to the world of design, he has always been a storyteller by trade and he seeks to inspire and cultivate a sense of awe with the work and artists he profiles. When he’s not winning over his daughters with the art of the Dad joke, he is usually working on a pilot, watching the Phillies, or cooking an elaborate meal for his wife.
No comments:
Post a Comment