The document provides details of the design process for shrink wrap and label designs for a kombucha bottle. It describes experimenting with different graphics, layouts, and elements to incorporate references to Chinese culture. This includes testing head designs, colors, and layouts on a 3D bottle model. The final shrink wrap design features fading rows of terracotta army heads with the product name. The label design brings together elements from different concepts, including tea leaves arranged in a circle, mountains, sugar cane, and an illustration of a Chinese man making tea to represent the drink's origins.

1. Shrink Wrap Design

2. These are the first set of graphics I have made for my shrink wrap design. I made
them using various shapes and the pathfinder tool. I’ve made three different
sets of eyebrows, so that every few heads have different features.

3. In my design, the heads are placed in rows, for each row I’ve
reversed the order of the heads so that it doesn't look like
the same head placed one on top of each other. I started
with three different heads but didn't like that the middle
head was always the same design, so I added another one
thinking that this would sort the problem. I’ve now realised
that the middle or one of the middle heads would always
have to be stacked on top of itself, but I’m happy with the
change anyway as I think four heads make it less obvious
and it also looks more interesting. Before
After

5. Rather than make the graphics for my bottle out of a vector image, Chris
suggested making the image into a repeating pattern that could be added to the
swatches. (I’m not planning on using these colours in my final design! The
design of the head is now much more simple, but I think I prefer it like this.) This
was then added to the symbols palette which meant it could be applied to a 3D
version of the bottle. As you can see, the image works quite well around the
body of the bottle but the neck is extremely distorted, leading me to rethink my
design. I do like this idea, so I could perhaps use it to cover the inside of the
packaging or maybe print it on to tissue paper and wrap the bottle up in this
design. As you will see from my sketches, my design also features a sort of
ribbon that wraps around the product and holds its name, maybe I could really
simplify the wrap and make the packaging the most interesting part of the
product. This ribbon aspect could also be included in the packaging, perhaps by
untying a ribbon the sides of the box could fall open, revealing the product.

7. • After decided the design didn’t work when wrapped around the entire bottle, I had a play
around with the terracotta army heads to see how they could be incorporated into a label. I
tried making them cover the entire thing but the design seemed to bold to allow for any text
to stand out, so I thought I could try making a few rows of them that would fade up into the
background. Here, I think they fade too quickly, but this can be altered. I quite like the effect,
but am now considering using this on a shrink wrap as I think an all white bottle could look
quite modern and elegant, and the fading allows them to only wrapped around only the body
of the bottle so the distortion around the neck wouldn’t be an issue. Here I have added some
text to see what it could look like as a final design, I used a colour red from this picture on the
right I found on the internet. Chris has told me the colour used on the Chinese seals, like the
one in the bottom corner of the image is called Cinnabar which is red mercury sulphide. I’d
really like to capture this colour on my design.

9. • Here I’m playing around with the design a little more. Rather than white, I looked to see what
the design might look like in an off white colour, like in the image I found. I quite like this but
think its a little too green, so I’m having a look at different colours and comparing them until I
find the right one – that's what the little brownish coloured square is for next to the label!
Because the text is quite spaced out, I’ve looked at adjusting the spacing of the heads a little
more to see what effect this might have. I think I prefer them more spaced out, it seems to
help the whole design looks less cramped. I’ve also used multiply, to help them fade into the
background more.

10. I’ve been looking at different colours I could use for the background, I
want it to be a light colour, almost like an off white, but they’re are
obviously hundreds of variations. The first colour here seemed too
grey, the second too green and I felt that the third and fourth were
too brown and reminded me too much of a skin colour. It’s hard to
judge colours when they’re placed next to lots of others but I have
decided to go with the fifth colour, as its not too much of one shade –
its quite neutral.

11. • Here I’ve added a drop shadow
to chinese text to help it stand
out, I liked the subtlety of the
white font, but it wasn’t legible
enough, and I think this drop
shadow really helps to just lift
it a little bit. Next I want to
adjust the fading in the heads,
because I think they fade to
harshly here, the jump
between the shades of grey
needs to be less obvious.

12. • I’ve adjusted the fading so that the shades
reduce by only a percentage of two, I also
added another line because I felt that by the
third line, they still hadn’t faded enough into
the background. Here the fourth line is only
just visible and I think when you compare this
to the slide before, the fade is much more
elegant. I now need to have a look at fonts I
could use. On my initial idea on paper, it was
designed to be quite a decorative style but
now that the design is much more simple, I’m
not sure how this would work. Looking back
over how I’ve progress I’m also still debating
on whether I like the white background better.
(The heads would obviously have to be made
darker again if I was to choose white.) I think I
need to apply the design to the 3D bottle to
see how they compare.
?

13. • Here I tried seeing
what the head
looked like closer
together again, but I
think I prefer them
spaced out.

14. v
• Here I am testing out different
fonts to use for the products
name. Out of all the ones I
tested, I think I liked this first
one here best. Because its quite
heavy, I think it balances the
whole design the best, I think
some of the others are too thin
and are overpowered by the
other graphics. The font is
called Bebas Neue and is in
18pt.
Fonts from www.fontsquirrel.com

15. • Here is my finished
shrink wrap design
on a 3D bottle
made in illustrator.

16. • Here is my
design on a
shrink wrap
label.

17. Label Design

18. • For my label design, I
experimented with graphics from
all three of my ideas. Here, I’ve
started by creating a leaf (I made
this using a mixture of the arc
tool, the ellipse tool and the
scissor tool), as I planned to
create the design where a leaf
was made up of tea leaves. But as
I hadn’t got any real tea leaves
yet, I decided to use the time
seeing what they would look like
in a circle, like in the first of my
final ideas. I decided that I liked
the way this looked and would
experiment with it further. When
making the design, I used a circle
to make sure I positioned them
correctly, but I liked the way the
leaves looked like they were
wrapped around it and decided I
could make a design to fit inside
this.

19. • I have experimented with
colours I could use for the
leaves, I tried first using
red and blank, two
colours often associated
with China, but I decided
I liked more natural
colours better, and so
used these two different
shades of green. I then
tried adding a
background, and I like the
way this grey colour
looks, although I’m not
sure yet whether I want
the label to be
rectangular, or to just be
the shape of the circle.

20. • I then incorporated my third label idea
into the design, I think the designs all
actually work quite well together,
probably because they all include similar
elements anyway so thankfully, they
don’t look too busy, or like there's too
many ideas going on at once. I need to
add the name of the product to this
now, which I think will go in the space
above the mountains. I think this works
well as it is, (I made this with a mixture
of shapes and the mesh tool) but other
than the tea leaves, it doesn’t really
suggest anything Chinese, this
landscape could be anywhere really, so
I’m going to add a few more elements
like those in my idea.

21. • The graphics I have designed for this are actually
inspired by the Chinese story of the origin of tea,
where the emporer Shennong liked his water to
be boiled before he drank it so that it would be
clean. One day, on a trip to a distant region, he
and his army stopped to rest. A servant began
boiling water for him to drink, and a dead leaf
from the wild tea bush fell into the water. It
turned a brownish color, but it was unnoticed and
presented to the emperor anyway. The emperor
drank it and found it very refreshing, and cha
(tea) came into being.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tea_in_China

22. I wanted to add sugar cane to the image to
Give clues about the ingredients used in Kombucha.
To get the shape, I drew two ovals and a rectangle
and used the pathfinder tool to make this shape. I
then coloured the shape using the gradient tool and
stacked them on top of each other to make sugar
cane. I tried putting two on either side of the
mountains, but I thought it looked better less
symmetrical, and more natural, like this. I also like
how it sort of frames the background. The font I
have used for the name is one I have downloaded
from the website Fontsquirrel, and is called
Matchbook. I like the long ascenders as they remind
me of Chinese writing, but its still simple and
modern.

24. • Here, I am making the pot full of boiling water, again, I
made the shapes out of various shapes, the arc tool
and the pathfinder or scissor tool. When making the
shape of the flame, I had some trouble trying to use
the mesh tool on it, so I used a tip I found on the
internet, where you create a rectangle and apply the
mesh tool to it, then reshape it into the shape you
want. This meant I could then colour the flame to
make it look more realistic. I then used the spiral tool,
to add some detail to the flames that looks similar to
pictures found in Chinese culture (the best example of
this is probably in Chinese illustrations of clouds; I had
thought of using clouds in my design, but I think this
would make it too busy, and I like how the sky is quite
simple, letting the product name be the main focus. )

25. • I experimented
with these shapes
until I was happy
with the final piece;
at first the flames
were quite large in
comparison to the
pot, but I thought
they looked better
much smaller. I also
adjusted the
colours used in the
mesh tool on the
pot to make it look
more 3D.

26. I wanted to add an image of a
Chinese man to my design, but
wasn’t really sure how to go about
this. I decided to look for illustrations
on the internet and found this one I
liked. I then used the same technique
I used when making the flame, by
making mesh boxes and using them
to create the shapes I want that can
then be coloured in. I made parts of
his robe, hair, and face from these
boxes and then added detail using
the line tool.
http://images-mediawiki-sites.thefullwiki.org/10/3/6/2/78289943568554491.jpg

28. Once I added the chinese man to my design, the lines looked too heavy,
and made him look sort of less 3D, so I lowered the weight of them to
0.5px. I then experimented with where he should be placed, in the end I
decided he looked best slightly in front of the pot. I still didn’t really feel
happy with the way the fire looked, so I tried changing its transparency to
hard light and I like this much better, I think because you can see the pot
through it, it looks more real.

29. • This is my final design for my label, it shows
the back and front labels. The measurements
used for the labels were taken off a 300ml
Budweiser bottle, the back is 5cmx7cm and
the front is 9cmx7cm.

30. • I changed my final design slightly in that I
made all writing on the back of the bottle
green because at such a small size, the pink
didn’t stand out as well when I put it onto
the image of a bottle.