Spice Islands® produces high quality spices and herbs through several methods of carefully preserving their fresh ingredients. One of many is by using a grinder frozen by nitrous oxide, to ensure their spices don't lose precious oils in the grinding process. Another method is selling the product in glass containers to keep the flavor rich for longer than most other brands.
My team was tasked with capturing the essence of an artisan, small-batch flavor adventure for the customer. We executed this creative process by redesigning their brand and developing a custom website that connects users with flavor adventures contributed from around the world.
We developed a strategy to promote local support for communities by sponsoring food trucks, taking care of their spice needs, and offering help with the cost of spices for small-batch food companies. In return, a portion of the label's real estate would go to noting Spice Islands' generous involvement. As for promoting the spices at grocery stores to directly increase profit, Spice Islands could set up aisle endcaps offering recipes that combine the grocery store's products with the company's spices and herbs.
Our brand guideline consisted of natural backdrops with earthy colors inspired by the spices themselves. We used the slab serif font to achieve a more friendly vibe, and chose to have overlapping imagery as if the spices and objects had fallen onto each layout. These methods, along with large, centered imagery, help the read path and encourages users to scroll down the page. I initially designed a darker piece, with sample photography from Spice Island's social campaign. I felt it had a richer, more exclusive essence; however, we ultimately went with a lighter color scheme..
In order to ensure the small-batch, artisan essence of the brand, we decided to place individual spices and herbs by hand onto layouts in our photo studio. My team started by ordering three of one-hundred and forty-four different spices from our client. We then went shopping at antique malls, vintage marts, and rustic house-ware shops to find props, and to the grocery store for fresh ingredients and fruits to support the brand. My team then spent 4 days in the studio, placing each layout by hand, seed by seed and leaf by leaf. We shot two layouts of each spice or herb, and one hero shot of the bottle itself.
The concept of the website was to create a place where users could find information about the product, easily navigate recipes, and connect with the community. We hired several journalists to travel the world and document their "flavor adventures." The writers would send us their stories, and we'd display them on the site. We also allowed users to create accounts to connect with the journalists, submit their personal flavor adventures for others to try, and vote on recipes and stories to help them gain popularity within the community.