For Thinking Tree Spirits, our goal was to create an interactive packaging experience with the playful exuberance of storybooks and Rococo scrollwork, all evocative of the lush bounty of Oregon.
We designed the Thinking Tree brandmark for flexibility, personifying the brand as a contemplative woman collared and crowned with ornamental branches that either gently germinate or grow wild to fill the canvas, be it the small circular icon on the cap, or front and centre on the hangtag.
For the illustrations, we were inspired by Late Baroque mirrors to create highly dimensional packaging, using the main label for deep background artwork, and layering over it a hangtag of duplexed cardstock with a pop of purple foil and, finally, a colourful ornate frame raised to its highest relief with sculptured embossment. Hidden throughout are local and mythological life, from Odin’s ravens (‘thought’ and ‘memory’), to the polyphemus moth (whose eyespots are named after Homer’s cyclops) and its caterpillars, down to the great horned owl, whose face is composed of oak leaves.
On the hangtag’s verso, the linework is reproduced by a letterpress, whose raised ink, along with the purple string that ties tag to neck, all add to the rich tactile experience. Here, one is invited to be creative, whether scribbling thoughts or verse, notes on a new infusion, or a kind gift-letter to a friend.
Designed by: Hired Guns Creative, Canada.
Printer: Twin Ravens Press
Printer: CCL
Photography: Sean Fenzl