Paint to Pair
Fashion designer turned interior designer creates a paint line to compliment her custom furniture as well as a system to help people match colors
2017
Goal
Fictitious renowned fashion designer Natasha Hemsley has decided try her hand at interior design, developing a line of paint colors to pair with her work. She not only needs a new logo for her paints, but some packaging design as well, with extra consideration of how the packaging will read when displayed in stores.
Highlights
Logo
Since the fashion designer was already well known, her name being prominent in the logo was appropriate. This logo marries her fashion background and interior paint and creates a display system unique to this company that is both eye-catching and familiar to fashionistas.
Design
Though simple, the simplicity actually makes it stand out from other major paint brands such as Behr and Valspar. Their extra design elements detracted from the most important part of the product: the color.
Display System
Paint cans, when displayed, are often stacked, giving the display a lot of vertical height. Re-imagining the display as a mannequin was easy because of that. However, the different clothing items aren’t just for a fun play on Hemsley’s roots. I also took into consideration, after looking at many paint books, how many of those books suggest paint pairings and visually show how well they go together. In my mind, it was a lot like coordinating an outfit. But instead of looking at books, hoping to find the shade of blue they like, customers can find a color, then easily find what colors would pair well with their choice right on the can itself. This system is also versitile in how many colors are used in the set, like using a dress instead of a coat and pants for two colors or adding a hat as a fourth color.
Challenges
Logo
Fashion, interior design, paint; there was a lot to try to convey in this brand identity. Do I go with a fashion designer logo on a paint can? Then the logo couldn’t work on its own and it wouldn’t be particularly memorable. Do I incorporate the interior design aspect? Then it all gets a bit too cluttered and a little confusing. After many sketches and some trial and error, I decided the paint and fashion design background, since that’s where a lot of her customers will know her for at first, was the most important.
Space and Legibility
Though there’s a lot of space on a paint can, half of it is dedicated to the primary display panel. And since there isn’t much place to store a sheet of instructions, all the health information and instructions had to fit on the can itself. Finding the right balance of having the text remain legible, through font size and color, and having the can look presentable, especially from the front, proved to be more challenging than I initially anticipated. It became even more difficult when working with the smaller paint can.