Davy Jones' Locker Rum

Branding, Packaging Design, Web UI/UX

Overview

An upcoming brand of rum was need of a strong brand identity, unique label design, promotional material, and accompanying website prototype to assist in showcasing its product range and the brand's tone of voice. it was crucial that the theme of sailor/pirate folklore and superstition is effectively visually communicated within the deliverables. The Target Demographic consisted of unisex 18 - 30 year-old rum enthusiasts. For the visual style of the brand, inspiration came from the idea of combining live-action photography with hand-drawn sketches/assets, and experimenting with various blending modes to create an illusion similar to viewing something floating just beneath the surface of the sea.

My Role:
Lead Designer & Researcher

Toolkit:
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Figma

Research

My first area of research was the current rum market, namely the branding and associated websites of similar products to the one in development for this project, with strong nautical/pirate themes. 3 examples of rum brands similar to the brief are Captain Morgan, Kraken, and Pirate's Grog. With this, I carried out research into each of these brand's respective websites and branding. A notable finding from this research revealed that the branding is an essential component to the user experience and interface, with the use of colour, relevant imagery, and theming of the product being reflected in the visual aesthetics and functionalities of each website. for example, with both kraken and pirate's grog utilising storytelling within their websites to reflect the mystical, mysterious nature of their brands.

on the topic of the branding of these examples, each make use of a lettermark logo with accompanying imagery used on either the product label or promotional material. the use of lettermark logos allows for easy scaling and translation to various forms of promotional material/marketing, as well as the ability to be used in black & white depending on the format in which it is used. I carried out further research into the branding of other rum products, and noted down some of my key findings to aid in the development phase.

Branding & Web Research

One design feature that stood out to me was the use of motion graphics within the websites for kraken (see below), namely the use of 3D animation, and particle effects which can be easily produced within Adobe After Effects. This had given me the idea of utilising video content within the website prototype. One particular idea I had was to create a unique motion graphic that plays in a loop on the index page to immediately set the tone of the website, featuring an underwater set-piece with a shipwreck in the background, and floating text acting as a call-to-action to encourage the User to explore the website.

With the initial research complete, I proceeded to create a Moodboard containing various forms of imagery and colour in order to visually portray the brand's tone of voice as a source of inspiration and ideation.

Moodboard

With the completion of the discovery phase, the first step of the define process was to envision the target demographic, and consider their surroundings and influences to aid in gaining a better understanding of what they would look for in a new brand of rum and its website. I started with the creation of User Personas to characterise examples of the target demographic. This was followed by with the creation of an empathy map to lay out the thoughts and feelings of the intended demographic, some "how might we?" questions to assist in developing solutions to hypothetical
problems that may interfere with the successful outcome of the project, and the use of the Kano/MoSCoW prioritisation method to determine the best features to implement into the website prototype based on the website's functionalities, and the satisfaction of the target demographic.

User Personas