The making of the packaging for single-origin coffee 2014

Getting the task: to create labels for single-origin coffee packs.

Art director: No, it’s all bad. Just look at how beautiful the packaging for coffee blend #330 was.

Trying to repeat the design of the blend #330.

Art director: The background has to be white. And I want a normal layout.

Art director: That’s better. All the flags must be in the same place.

Changing the background color to a slightly milky one, it makes the illustrations blend in better.

Art director: Where’s the text in English?

Adding the English translation of all the texts.

Art director: What about grams?

Consulting the editor for the best way to translate grams.

Art director: OK.

Sending the result to the typesetter.

Typesetter: We’ve changed the layout slightly. The text column is now wider and the margin between the heading and the small text is now larger. Should I prepare it for print?

Art director: I don’t like how there are so many different point sizes in the title. You need to insert the logo of our cafés. And cut down on the number of point sizes.

Typesetter: The café logo looks odd in the heading. Maybe, put it on the side? Though it will be too small there. If we were to make it larger, it has to be at the bottom, but then we’ll have to make the women smaller and they won’t be as expressive. I’ve also decreased the number of point sizes.

Typesetter: Here’s another option. But the complex cut-out will bring up the production cost.

Art director: Then we can add the text at the top without the cut-out.

Typesetter: What if we give the packs individual background colors? Also, the chief typesetter suggests to replace the typeset names with calligraphic ones. Here is an example.

Art director: I’m not sure about different background colors. The calligraphy is all right.

Asking the illustrator to write the names in Russian and in English. Done.

Art director: Let’s put the top text on a black bar with bleeding. Also, the pink background won’t work.

Art director: The rounding radius is huge. It has to be like on a credit card.

Art director: Make it even more tight and compact. The margin on the left is too large and the bar on top is too spacious.

Art director: It’s missing something, it just doesn’t look cool. The text block looks especially cheap.

Art director: Not tasty and not nice.

Typesetter: Maybe we should get back to the black background?

Art director: It might be better this way, but the layout of the text block on black background is too round, it diverts all the attention.

Typesetter: I made the café logo slightly thicker and moved the studio logo away from the top bar.

1. The flag is corner to corner with the logo.

2. The alternative background color.

3. The flag and the logo are not connected, but the name of the coffee is more visible.

Art director: Number two and let’s try to put the Russian and English texts on both sides of the picture.

Art director: You can remove the studio logo. The coffee name in English can be larger.

Art director: OK, but I still don’t like the (g).

Sending to the editors and making color proofs.

Project manager: We have to replace the RST certification with EAC and remove the GOST.

Approving the color proofs after the third try. Sending to print.

The print run goes immediately to the factory and is used in the packaging. Getting the first batch of coffee and noticing incorrect corner rounding. But the packages are already in stores. One of the customers writes to Artemy to say that the flag on the Colombian coffee is wrong and that the name of coffee should be “Colombia” in English.

Fixing all the mistakes.

Reprinting.