Tropic Blitz
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Keep the kick, lose the headache.
Tropic Blitz is a nonalcoholic cocktail brand that sells canned cocktails inspired by tropical locations. Their first two flavors are inspired by Mexico and Hawaii; Lucha Lime is a refreshing, spicy take on the jalapeño margarita and and Tiki Twist is a juicy remix of the Blue Hawaiian. No vacation days? No problem. Take a trip in a sip with Tropic Blitz, no passport necessary.
Discovery
The seed of Tropic Blitz was planted when I stumbled upon some cool Halloween masks at Target last year (including the cat pictured here). It made my think about making some fun beverage packaging with big, funky character head illustrations.
I thought designing cocktail labels would allow me to pursue some really funky, playful imagery, and started thinking about what characters could connect to different cocktails. I then connected Luchador masks to margaritas and tiki heads to Blue Hawaiians, and I was off to the races.
sketches
From my initial sketches, I had a very clear vision of what style I was going for; I wanted sketchy hand drawings with lots of charm, lots of texture, and the sort of cheekiness that might appeal to rebellious ne'er-do-wells who skateboard and smoke in parking lots with their buddies.
When it came to sketch logos for the actual brand, I wanted something versatile enough to work for any tropical location.
drafts
For my initial drafts, I went all in with bold, punchy colors for my Lucha Lime flavor (at this time simply called Jalapeño Margarita) and slightly more muted, chill colors for my Blue Hawaiian flavor to capture the energies of their inspired locations. I drew most of the elements for the heads on my ipad to give it a hand-drawn feel, and the fruit elements combined with the head expressions added the playfulness I wanted.
assets and typography
final labels
For my final labels, I opted for monochrome palettes to clearly communicate flavor, updated my illustrative elements for consistency and made patterns with them, and added the content and framing elements needed to make these bad boys the real deal.
lucha lime mockups
tiki twist mockups
reflection
This was by far my favorite project I’ve worked on thus far; I think it successfully captures a cheeky, black sheep personality through the hand-drawn and textured elements, thematic typefaces, and playful use of fruit in place of facial features.
This project makes me think I might enjoy designing labels for craft breweries, as I indirectly sourced inspiration from the funky designs I’ve seen walking down the beer aisle.