LEFT: Front cover’s composition provided by Blank Co.

The brief is to have a set of geometric line-art illustration on the front cover filled around the product name like the guide provided. Objects for the illustration includes mountains, rivers, coffee fields, coffee tree and fruit to represent the beautiful scene of the coffee fields in the hill area of Da Lat, Vietnam, where the beans came from.

RIGHT: First development

After a few attempts to develop the design using vector on Adobe Illustrator. I started to realise that the direction was not suitable for the typographic composition, which was too complicated. The awkward and restricted space around made it difficult to produce an illustration that also allowed the text to stand out.

I decided to create the illustration separately, making it a full composition with no white space so that with the right colours and printing technique, it can be the background for the name and brand logo. I drafted this version digitally using a Wacom tablet and pen. The illustration style drew inspiration from linocut arts.

After filling in colours, the illustration had a more modern look and worked well as background for the text and logo. For production, we decided to use screen printing to produce the illustration and metallic embossing for the logo and product name, to make sure it can best stand out from the colourful illustration.

This is my first ever attempt to create an illustration, which I think is revealed through the clumsiness and inconsistence in the small details and the colour choice. Nevertheless, it was still a project that I learnt a lot from, and a chance to test myself outside of my comfort zone.