Food Products Brochure Design
Background Information
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Client:
Beijing Shijijiaming Inc. (北京世纪佳明集团公司)
Project:
Brochure Design for their Subsidiary Food Brand — WuChangWuYuan(吾尝吾愿)
Focus:
Editorial Design, Typography, and Branding
Client Background:
Beijing Shijijiaming Inc. is a large-scale comprehensive group company. Its business includes catering, real estate, animal husbandry, agriculture and other fields. In the year of 2017, Beijing Shijijiaming Inc. established a food brand — WuChangWuYuan. WuChangWuYuan is committed to bringing the concept of healthy food and quality of life to millions of Chinese Families.
WuChangWuYuan current has two food products series, Rice series and Black fungus series. The target customers are from 25 to 40 years old, and the income is about 500k RMB per year(almost 100k CND).
Personal background:
Wenlong, the manager of WuChangWuYuan, is my high school classmate, and he is currently studying at Peking University. In 2017, his father who is the president of Beijing Shijijiaming Inc. allowed him to start managing WuChangWuYuan. He hopes WuChangWuYuan can stand out in the food market in China, not only product quality but also give consumers a different feeling from the design aspect.
Then, he found me, and he hoped I could work with him as a graphic designer to build this brand. This was a big challenge for both of us. Fortunately, I have completed the Packaging Design of three rice products, he also completed his first step in his entrepreneurial process.
What do they need for this project?
Currently, WuChangWuYuan has two series, a total of six products. They ask me to design a brochure for them. So, in some market activities, they can use the brochure to introduce themselves and display products to customers.
The Challenge & Goal:
- This brochure is a part of WuChangWuYuan branding.
- Limited Picture resources(They only have products images).
- Due to the limitations of the brochure, streamlining the information, and allowing customers to know this brand accurately are big challenges of design.
- The balance and hierarchy of design.
- Attracting more customers and increasing sales(most important).
Let’s Start
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Brief:
- Design a visual identity for the brochure.
- Introduce the brand and products information.
- Display six products.
- Design an effective grid system to help audiences reading.
Research:
I did some online research on Pinterest, and I used these examples as resources for the layout idea, product display idea, type treatment, visual language, and the size and pages of this brochure.
When I did these research, I found that those brochure examples had some identical characteristics that can attract me. Their covers were straightforward and clean, and there was no excess graphics pattern. And the simple grid system design of the inside content page also could guide the audience to know the information. Don’t Design too much!
Roughs:
After Research, I started to do some pencil roughs. These includes page setting, grid layout, and cover design. For editorial design, doing some pages map will help designer to visually see the content page, and the appearance order.
And for the cover ideas, I wanted to use the product image or product mood image as a main content on the cover. Then, the audience can intuitively understand the subject of this brochure.
I tried different ways to digitalize my idea of cover from my pencil roughs. But I failed… And my client did not like these covers too.
For me, I did not like the overall design feeling, although I designed these. These cover will not stand out from the brochure shelf, the visual identity is not strong enough. And the audience will not interest what is inside content. For my client, they thought the cover should express the brand, rather than focus on one product.
Aha! Moment:
According to my client’s feedback, I thought that I should design the cover from a different perspective; starting from the brand itself, rather than a product. Because the cover is the key to attract audiences. At the same time, I was thinking if Nike, Apple or Coca-Cola designed a brochure to introduce their product, what kind of cover would it be? They will not just put the product image on the cover.
The Solution:
Therefore, I started rethinking the idea of the cover. Because WuChangWuYuan focuses on healthy food, the cover should strive to express the concept that is presented throughout the brand. After a quick brainstorm, I decided to create an illustration of “Dream Farmland” to express the brand concept.
For the illustration design, I decided to used line art and brand colour green to create a dream farmland mood. And I kept simple and clean style to design cover and outside pages, and the illustration could also make these pages more consistent.
Inside content pages:
My idea was to display products one by one as a list, just so that it looked ordered and clean.
However, I found a problem when I tried to put the images of products into the content pages. If I arrange them horizontally and put the illustration on the bottom, the overall design will lose balance, and the inside content pages looks boring. If I arrange them vertically, there will be a blank page.
Back to my research, I found some examples have a “big mood image and small product image” layout.
So I tried to follow some examples layout to design the content pages. I talked this idea to my client, but the feedback is: “good idea, but we want a product brochure, instead of an advertisement brochure.”
Aha! Moment:
Through the communication with my client, I realized where the problem is and how to fix that. Firstly, according to the previous designs experience, the four-page brochure is more suitable for this project. Secondly, combining products list idea and big mood image idea, it will make this brochure more attractive and reach the client’s goal.
The Solution:
Finally, I have completed this brochure design. The size is 4” x 7.5” per page. I put the illustration on the cover and back cover pages. The overall design of outside pages based on green colour mood, which is in line with the branding. And I created an infographic which introduces the character of the farmland of rice, and a rice cooking step diagram which based on the WuChangWuYuan special measuring cup.
For the inside content pages, I combined the previous designs. The left page is the products list, and the right page is the feature image of the star product’s packaging. This layout makes the products information much clear, and the audience can also know more about the star product.
This project is a very valuable experience for me. It makes me more in-depth understanding of branding, but also helped me improve the ability to communicate with the client. For the real world, an only good design is not enough. It is better to understand more about the needs of client, brand and marketing, and use design to achieve the goals. For businesses, it’s what connects you with customers in its ability to explore the market, create competition, and in turn, sell the product. For consumers, it provides assurance for quality, worth, and satisfaction; characteristics that stands along with brands they trust.
The Brochure design may seem simple, but it contains a lot of elements from the editorial design. Through this project, I gain a better understanding about typographic, layout design, and how to visualize the information and concept to the audience and let them know as much as possible about the product and brand.
My client is satisfied with this design because this brochure design has achieved their desired effect. This brochure can represent the branding, and the illustration of the cover has a strong visual identity. They think this brochure can help them stand out in the market.
