Responses by Oleksandr Andreiev, creative director, Reynolds and Reyner.
Background: The goal of this project is to capture a small market share in a rum category in a new market region. This needs to be done within the next three-to-five years. Our primary audience is men and women aged 25 to 50—mostly men.
Design thinking: We use a fixed, well-established methodology that includes analyzing more than 50 potential competitors and finding a unique visual solution within the business category. A review of competitors showed that themes of mythology and using a snake as the main character are rare in the category. So, we started moving in this direction.
Challenges: We needed to create a bottle design that would attract attention from a distance. We wanted the buyer, when holding it, to not want to put it back on the shelf, but rather stand and examine it, admiring all the snake scale textures on the glass and cap, as well as the small texts and design elements on the label. From a manufacturing standpoint, producing highly detailed bottles is quite challenging.
Favorite details: We always pay a lot of attention to detail. So, we are proud of successfully incorporating all these small details into the actual design. This is often quite challenging due to the technological limitations of glass production or label manufacturing.
Visual influences: We wanted to create a mythical image of some kind of magic hidden inside this bottle and in its visual execution. It’s like some elixir with incredible effect that Indiana Jones tries to obtain during his adventures around the world. It’s a complex mix of connection with nature, adventure and the people guarding the secret of this drink.
Alternate paths: We spent too much time attempting to create a snake-inspired design, whereas our goal was to create a nature oriented adventurous identity. Castlaw should be associated with nature, mythology and some sort of magic, rather than just a snake as an animal. The snake is not the main character of the brand identity; it only conveys associations with the imagery we need.
Browse Projects
