Mood Board and Brief

The brief, including the mood board, was given by Cleveland Kitchen, and I can’t share it here, but I have to tell you it was the most detailed I ever seen. They have a clear vision of what they want. They know their customers, the colors, and vibe. The brief made the early stages of planning out the design super easy.

After reading the brief, here is what I settled on:

• Scattered ferment party with playful doodle-style icons like peppers, cabbage, spices, carrots, beets, onions, garlic, and other veggies used in their fermented products.
• Could add a shopping cart with fermented goodies and veggies
• Should use given fonts to create fun puns, like: “Good Gut Vibes, Fermented Fuzz, Help your Gut, Beet It.”
• Should use line work and make it retro but trendy by shifting the colors off a little bit.

Rough Sketches

I created a bunch of icons, some hand lettering, and arranged them to fit on the back of a shirt, leaving the bottom-right corner empty for CK’s logo. I really loved this 1st version, so I didn’t brainstorm anymore. Jumped right into the final drawing.

Final design

Using a vector brush in Fresco, I draw the black outlines first. Then I played with some colors. As you can see, not all motifs are filled with color, which makes this design unique and playful. Once I was happy with the design, I imported it into Illustrator and cleaned it up.

Following the instructions, I submitted a PDF with the design and a mockup. In a few weeks, I heard the great news that I won the contest! We worked together to make some minor changes, like swapping the puns with the sayings Cleveland Kitchen wanted. Swap the veggies in the shopping cart with CK’s products.

Once the final design was approved, I prepared the files and sent them to Cleveland Kitchen. What a dream came through by working with one of my favorite companies!