One thing we love reading about at LP WHQ is the process behind a finished piece, so we’re going to try to feature that more frequently on the blog. I know I always enjoy seeing the directions that didn’t get picked and the path the project took, so hopefully you all will too. Here goes…

Like most people, we usually start out with a sketch phase, just doodling lots of loose ideas and so forth. Unfortunately this is all I could dig up for this particular project but it gives you the idea. We really dig working in Col Erase pencils, they are perfect for different pressures and for working loose.

The tin shape and size was already determined so we did not have to explore that. This product lives in stores year round so it couldn’t have any direct reference to the holidays, so we had to think about other details we could bring to it that wouldn’t be holiday specific. We knew we wanted to explore several pattern options (some bold, some more delicate), a more clean modern direction, and one direction that had an actual illustration of hot chocolate on the packaging.

Below are a few of our favorite designs we presented from this initial exploration.


In the next round, we took the directions that were chosen from that original batch and made further revisions and exploration. Below you can see how for this one particular design we tried various type lockups and placements. There was some color exploration as well and while we landed on a nice yellow for the Citrus flavor, you can see below that at one point it was pink.


And below is the design Williams-Sonoma picked to move forward with, which we were super excited about.

As you can see, it’s a version of one we presented in the first round. From there we changed up the shape of the label and fussed with the type as well as changed the coloring on the Chai and Citrus packages. We also added a gold linear burst behind the type to give the package a bit more richness. All the gold is metallic so it really gives the package a nice premium feel.

And there you have it. You can see the finished design in William-Sonoma stores or on their website. They’re pretty delicious too, even in June. :) That’s it for now, hope you found this interesting!