Hello everyone!

I’m Maria, graphic designer based in Russia. I’m a big fan of Mary Kate McDevitt and I really appreciate it that she shares her amazing skills and tips with everyone.

For my project I decided to redesign a packaging for a tin of sardines. A couple of years ago I was on vacation in Portugal and came across a shop with lots of cute tins by Conserveira de Lisboa. The packaging consists of simple identical tins with various colorful labeled paper wraps. Simple idea that works really great. 

My goal for this project is to make my own packaging for a tin of sardines. Hopefully I can come up with a design that has a modern vintage look and a good composition, going to be a challenge for me since I want to include a lot of information. 

Inspiration

I ended up with lots of reference material which I found on Pinterest and in Encyclopedia of Advertising Tins Vol.2. While I was browsing I kept an eye out for interesting S letters (since might need one for Sardines).

Here are some sketches I made. I feel like I should have done way more, maybe I'll have time to do it when I'll be working on my final sketch in case I have a hard time making a good composition with all the information I want to include.

Brainstorming

• I want the packaging to look more special than ordinary sardines packaging, something people could buy as a gift.
•  I decided to pick a popular Portuguese name to go with Sardines, so it’s going to be Sandro’s Sardines. 
• I made a list of some copy I can put on the packaging (looked up some vintage sardines packaging for inspiration).
• I also made a small mind-map of other things that come to mind when you think about sardines and fishing.

Sketches

Here are some thumbnails I came up with

Sketches

Unfortunately didn't have a chance to scan them at work today, so had to photograph them instead. Not all the letters look right, going to correct it later on. Decided to go with #1, #2 and #5. 

#1 didn't really seem like a great option, but I picked it because it was the only one that didn't have a fish on it. I made the lighthouse bigger, the composition looks better now.

I picked #2 because it's the only one that is asymmetric. At the thumbnail stage I wasn't sure if I can make it work, I guess I like how it turned out.

 

I was deciding between #4 and #3, but decided that the overall look in #4 is more old-fashioned while in #3 it can be a good balance of vintage and modern. 

Didn't expect that I'll like how all of my sketches will turn out. Wish I had enough time to take all of them further. 

Decided to continue with #2 and see if I can make the asymmetric composition work. As I didn't have a chance to scan my sketch I had to use a slightly different process. I redrew it in Photoshop, correcting the composition and letters as I went along. It took a while, so next time I'm going to 1) do a better and bigger sketch, 2) scan it and trace it in Illustrator.

Decided to use a couple of vintage labels as my color reference.

I picked the second option and added some texture.

Overall I like how it turned out, but of course there is always room for improvement ;-) would have redrawn all the small lettering in the bottom part and changed the curves of the rope.

While I was working on the mockup I decided to change the border to yellow. Also I thought it would have been great if the stamp with the logo was foil embossed.