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How the Designers of Corelia Brought this Magical World to Life

by Theresa Christine Johnson on 05/24/2017 | 5 Minute Read

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We’ve got mega heart eyes for Corelia, a 100% natural sparkling soft drink made with Colombian tropical fruits. The colorful labels create a vibrant sense of place that takes the consumer right to the tropics. We talked with Siegenthaler & Co to learn more about their design process, creating an imaginary world and bringing it life, making multiple elements work harmoniously together, and more.

Walk us through the design process that you went through for this project.

Siegenthaler &Co: At S&Co we fundamentally believe in creating brands together with our clients, rather than simply working for them. It is our job is to understand them as profoundly as possible to be able to successfully translate their ideas into a graphic system/language. To achieve this we host workshops in which we let our clients run free with their dreams and ideas of what their brand should be, what it should stand for, how it should sound, and how they think it should look like—at this moment in the process ideas are not bad or good, they are simply part of a stream of information that acts as the raw material to be shaped into a final solution. The result of this process is a complete and detailed brief that is able to communicate both to the client and the studio what the brand's essence is for a specific project, it also assures us of nailing the right solution, or better yet, the correct approach to solving a design problem. In this specific case, we decided to create an avatar to tell our client's story...Corelia is a muse, a magical being that lives deep in the Colombian wilderness, in search of the best and most exotic fruits of our natural paradise.

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What was one of the biggest goals you set out to achieve with Corelia packaging and how did you accomplish it?

Siegenthaler &Co: To be able to represent how exotic and different these beverages truly are. This is why we decided to create an imaginary world, not rooted in the scientific representation of our jungles, or forests, but more akin to something you would imagine the Colombian wilderness is like, something to be found in dreams and stories, not in textbooks.  

What was the most challenging part of this project?

Siegenthaler &Co: As mentioned before, our biggest challenge was bringing this magical world to life, we had to create an exotic paradise, lush in color and organic shapes, a strange world, but recognizable enough to be able to communicate the brands essence. Like in many other projects we set out to collaborate with the best, in this case we reached out to Tatiana Boyko, a young and immensely talented illustrator based in London.

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How did you highlight the unique process by which the juice is made through the packaging you designed?

Siegenthaler &Co: A unique process deserves a unique solution. This is why we set out to create a world that exists nowhere else but inside Corelia's label. We did not use a pre-existing design for the label, but created a new form that adapted well to the shape of the bottle (a real design constraint here in Colombia, as we do not have a great variety of bottle shapes to choose from)—finally we went for a hand written font, something that communicated "singularity" and blended well with the rest of the label's illustrative style.

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If you could pick one aspect of the finished design that you like the most or feel especially proud of, what would it be and why?

Siegenthaler &Co: Choosing one aspect to feel proud of would be like choosing a favorite child...We think that our biggest achievement was to create a true balance and harmony with every element on Corelia's densely packed label. All the elements had to work well together in a very small amount of space, the illustration, color, typography etc.

Share one lesson that you learned while developing the finished product.

Siegenthaler &Co: Time = Quality. Not to say that we do not appreciate working with tough time constraints, but Corelia needed extra love and care. We took 4 -5 months before sending out to print, fortunately, our client's were willing to take this journey with us. From looking for the right illustration style, to adjusting colors in the printing process. Our clients accommodated nicely to our persnickety nature, and our fussiness over details. We think they are as happy as us with the end result.  

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