Gorgeous natural ingredients like beeswax, coconut oil and florals take center stage in the branding effort for this natural beauty prduct brand.
Concept and execution of brand design and packaging.
Designed in collaboration with Alma's founder, Sandra Goodridge.
March 2015
I was approached by Alma's owner, the lovely Sandra Goodridge, to develop:
— Logo design
— Branding
— Ideate and design simple packaging
Products are based on the all-natural recipes Sandra inherited from her grandmother, whose name was Alma. As a native of the Bahamas, Alma’s ingredients range from coconut oil and aloe to essential oils and beeswax.
Sandra, the client, described her vision for the brand as a 'tropical or Caribbean apothecary'. As an avid reader of everything written by Gabriel García Marquéz, my imagination was immediately excited.
I started by researching the Bahamas' flora and fauna, as well as a bit of history during Alma's lifetime (1900s). I gathered visual inspiration from beauty products, jewelry, postcards, and even a photo of Alma herself.
Romantic, exotic and organic were the adjectives that surfaced most frequently.
To streamline the effort and ensure alignment between logo and branding, I wanted to define packaging constraints early on.
After discussing with Sandra, we agreed on small, amber-colored glass jars as the most practical, sustainable, and cost-effective option for the products. I proposed using printable labels to easily customize and brand the jars.
With these clear constraints and dimensions, I could develop designs for the labels accordingly.
For the logo design exploration, I included serifed and scripted fonts, aligning with the approach of many luxury beauty brands. These fonts are scalable and appeal to a broad audience.
We also considered handwritten logo options to highlight the handmade nature and retro feel of the products.
Though we weren’t ready to finalize label designs, I developed late-stage logo options within the circular label template for better context.
I approached branding and label design simultaneously by breaking exploration down into smaller components or characteristics and presenting options in order to facilitate constructive conversations — “Do you prefer flat illustrations or photo realistic? Do you prefer muted or vibrant colors?”
From there I was able to create low-res mockups to quickly communicate a complete look and feel quickly and again have a conversation that would guide my next steps.
By the end of the second conversation we confidently defined the rich, detailed, saturated look that made up the final artwork.
I don't do illustration work frequently, so when I do it's a really enjoyable opportunity to work differently.
We were going for a hyper-saturated, realistic look. I kept imagining these items laid out on a wooden table in the late afternoon heat.
All images are digital illustrations, hand-drawn in Adobe Photoshop.
With the rise of generative image AI, I can't help but think how much faster this project would likely be today. I could have probably created some lovely, illustrations with a consistent style and possibly even found a tool that would create the final compositions as well. In much, much less time than the many hours I spent with my Wacom tablet sketching the hairy coconut texture.
But, I did genuinely enjoy the effort that went into these pieces. And I would like to think that I was able to lend them that extra little *something* only a person can provide. Like Alma, mixing her common ingredients with whatever her secret ingredient may have been — whether it was time or precision or love.