Dà Mhìle Drinks Packaging
November 2023
This third-year project at university involved designing/redesigning packaging for a product of our choice and creating ‘extra items’ to go alongside it. This was a fun project and very different to other modules throughout my time at university, it was one of the first times I’d created packaging design.
I chose to do a redesign of Dà Mhìle’s gin bottle labels, my goal was to transfer their core values to a more modern, clean-looking design; Dà Mhìle highly value the history of their farm and distillery, the organic ingredients involved in the process of making their drinks and the family-owned personal connection they have to the farm.
Initial conceptsAs mentioned, my goals for this redesign were to create a more modern, minimalist approach to Dà Mhìle’s label designs while retaining and portraying their core values.
My two initial concepts involved the primary visual relating to the ingredients used in the drink or the Celtic knot that Dà Mhìle uses in their logo.
Early on I wanted typography to play a large part in the visual of the label, setting it quite bold and large and having it appear cut off the edges of the label on the first concept to give it more intrigue.
My idea for the second label was that instead of it being just a square label on the front and back it would wrap around the whole bottle and the knot would connect on the other side.
I trialed each visual concepts on both the square label and the wrap-around label layouts.
Concept 1 – illustrative approachConcept 2 – Celtic knot approach
DevelopmentAt this stage I chose to continue with the illustrative approach as I felt is was more dynamic to have the juxtaposition of the bold, geometric typography with the elegant line art illustrations.
I tested a range of layout approaches for this concept, looking at different ways of using the illustration and alternative methods of combining the type and illustration.
As this project involved designing a series of items, I began looking at how a second drink would function on my label, introducing a new illustration with a new colour and also seeing how my layout for the type would handle a different drink’s name.
Illustrations
I attempted to curate illustrations that both matched the primary ingredients in the drinks they’re representing while also fitting together as a set.
Rethinking the conceptI found that my concept may not work for all the flavours I planned on designing, I’d wanted to make three flavours initially, ‘Sloe Gin’, ‘Honey Whisky’ and ‘Grapefruit Vodka’, however, when it came to setting out the ‘Grapefruit Vodka’ this name was too long for my format as ‘Grapefruit’ didn’t fit on one line at this size. This meant I’d need to rethink my concept somehow; as a backup I created a fourth flavour ‘Apple Vodka’ which did work with my concept, but it felt more appropriate to amend my design to work in any case, including long names such as ‘Grapefruit Vodka’.
As a result, I decided to look at old layouts I’d test and felt that moving the type to the centre may be the solution as this could accommodate names that span more than two lines.
Grapefruit flavour across two lines with alcohol type in sub-title.Old type layout concept that I was revisiting
Moving back to Celtic knot conceptWhile I was relatively happy with how the illustrative concept was coming along, I went back to continue developing the Celtic knot concept to see if this could surpass some issues that the illustrative concept was facing fundamentally.
Introducing contour linesAfter developing the Celtic knot concept further, I looked at ways to reinforce Dà Mhìle’s core values further as I mentioned originally. Something I saw Dà Mhìle use in their current packaging to some extent is contour lines, I felt I could utilise these in a subtle way to reinforce their value of their farm and its location while also adding an extra layer of interaction to the design through something that isn’t immediately apparent.
To this extent, I added the topographic contour lines of Dà Mhìle’s farm and the surrounding area as cut-outs on the knot visuals, this added a layer of texture from a distance and a new layer of interaction when viewed up close.
Concepts so farAfter developing both concepts to this point I needed to choose a single one to continue with solely so I could begin working on back labels and other elements. I chose the Celtic knot concept, it surpassed and accommodated issues that the lineart concept couldn’t and overall made for a more striking visual that I’d initially set out to create.
Celtic knot conceptLineart concept
Back label layout ideas
Final changesNew knot for ‘Apple Vodka’Alternate new knot for ‘Apple Vodka’New colour for ‘Honey Whisky’Heading type given a hanging line rather than being horizontally centre-aligned