Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Liquor Illustrations



My photo this week is something that I find very interesting to package design. I placed these two bottles next to each other to show the differences in illustration between the two. The Malibu bottle is of a simplistic design and works real well for this company and hasn't changed much throughout the years. The signature palm trees gives it a tropical feeling as it should for this type of liquor. Most people who see these palm trees know right away what they are from. The colors that the designer has picked are a great decision because it also gives it that tropical feel. The warm colors of orange and yellow contrast with the blue from the water in a very calming way and also helps get the point across.
On the other hand, the designer/illustrator who designed the Captain Morgan bottle went a different way and it also works. They have spent a lot of time developing the "mascot" for this brand and is recognizable worldwide. The style in which they went gave the brand a unique edge and is one of the few known liquor brands that uses a person on their bottle. A lot of other liquors have a signature mark or a logo for their bottle but there is no trace of a human or character. One thing that I have noticed when putting the two up against each other is that they share a similar color pallet but the Captain Morgan bottle does not read tropical when only looking at the logo. It just goes to show how the same color pallet can give off two seperate feelings depending on the context it is in.

1 comment:

  1. Good post. When in doubt, look at the world around you...

    Here's a research question: what is the oldest example of an illustration used on a liquor bottle? What about the oldest example of a mascot for liquor?

    I pose this challenge to the whole class.

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