Design a BOLD & Sophisticated label for the Devil's Pantry condiment range.

Devil's Pantry

Devil's Pantry is a small company which produces gourmet sauces and products that are inspired by chillies. Initially we are producing a small range of sauces with various heat ratings to be used as common condiments and marinades. Our target market is anyone who likes a bit of heat in their sauce, and those who would regularly use sauces and condiments at home. We have grand visions and long term plans for our brand and products so the label will need a sense of timelessness to it. We hope our main sales will be online, however, plan to also sell our range at local markets, restaurants, delicatessens, butchers, social media, distributors and friends.

We have the brand name and vision, we now need a logo and labels designed that will reflect the product and how we see it sitting on the shelves and in the market place. Our products are quality gourmet products made by hand with great ingredients, and we need our logo and labels to represent that. We see so many chilli style sauces with gimmicky labels that have animated chillies or devils etc and that is not really our style. We want the product to stand out on the shelf beside all of the other products with a clean layout, easy to read writing, specific information etc but edgy at the same time. The colour scheme will be focal to the brand, and how the label will look on the bottle. At this stage we are looking at clear bottles which will show the true colour of the sauce inside. The colours of the sauces are Deep burgundy red, dark blood red, ketchup red, deep orange brown, and a slightly lighter orange brown. We have put together a design, (which is very amatuer!), but is close to how we see the brand logo. We want the designers to have a play with this logo and improve it (the addition of a handle on the wooden pantry door in the background is one example) but also we would like to see designs that are completely different where the designer puts forward his/her own creative skills/ideas. In the end the label will be the basis for the webpage design, packaging, tee-shirts, business cards, etc.  We hope to use the winning designer to create/help with the creation of the packaging design, business cards, tee-shirts, etc. down the track.

PS - I have copied an answer to a designer's query.  We are in Australia. A basic list of items that will need to be covered include - weight (eg 250mL), name of company (Devil's Pantry), 'gourmet sauces', type of sauce (smokey bbq sauce, chipotle bbq sauce, tomato & chilli ketchup, honey chipotle sauce,The Devil's Hot Sauce & Sweet Chilli Sauce), a note relating to 'handmade/gluten free/preservative free'; etc, maybe 'made in Australia or made in Melbourne' ... also see our basic first attempt at a label and some of the example labels included. As mentioned in the brief the label has to be simple and striking and not too cluttered.

PS2 - We sat down last night and wanted to also see a 'lower case' font for used for only the 'Devil's Pantry' logo.  I have attached 'Font Test 1' which is the basis of what we were thinking but needs a bit of 'masculinity' if that makes sense.  'Font Test 2' was an attempt at trying this but not sure it's better.

The colours of the label we thought could work were matt charcoal/black in the background, with white, red or yellow in the text. Although we are happy to see other ideas. The designer may choose to offer some options using all colours or only a couple or something totally different. Possibly a sophisticated matt finish to the label, with high gloss text would be nice. In addition to the very preliminary first cut we put together, we have attached some images of some other labels that we really like and think capture your eye from across a room.
The 4 Pines label is the one we like the best as it's is simple, bold, contains some colour, is a quality label without being too serious, contains all the right information, and above all hits you in the face from across the room. We have included the Seville Estate label just for its simplicity and not so much the type of font used. Like the 4 Pines label, it is very striking and captures your eye from across the room. Basically we want our label to stand out and be the one your eye is drawn to amongst all the other sauce and condiment bottles on the shelf.
In addition to the above labels we like, we have also included other simple ones we don't mind.
One final idea we have with regards to packaging our product. We have the idea of using small 250mL or so bottles that are similar in shape to beer bottles and selling a 'mixed' 6 pack of sauces for people wanting to try our whole range, possibly with different bottle cap colours and variations of colour in the labels to distinguish between each different type of sauce. We have also included an image of a mixed 'beer' 6 pack - not really the colours we want to go for but it gives you an idea of 'mixed' 6 pack idea.
Anyway, hopefully this is all you will need to get started. We hope we have covered everything too. If you have any queries feel free to email us.

Regards Ziad & Stefan.
Devil's Pantry