For this task today, I have been told to try and redesign, in any sort of amount, any food product that I find boring. Now, this is one that I have been waiting for, because one certain type of product that I always think has a boring exterior is milk. With its not nice texture on the outside, to the same picture of cows in a field with the brands logo slapped in the middle, the only reason these companies have been able to get away with it is simply because everybody needs milk and do not care about how it looks.
But me myself? I would love to change this. Now, obviously there already are some interesting designs for milk bottles, which can be seen on my post about innovative packaging, but what I noticed about that design is that it did not seem very commercially viable. The process to get the full metal cap, especially shaped in such an intricate way seems unreasonably expensive, along with the glass bottle itself which looks unreasonably thick when it comes to the walls, which is unreasonably adding packaging cost.
And despite this, I feel like I can create an interesting look for milk jugs in specific, because I hate their usual bulbous shape along with their texture, awful choices of colour and ugly choices of little graphics on the front of the package, so I’m going to try and find some superior design for milk jugs.
This is one interesting design I found for milk jugs, made by a designer called Konstantinos Ladas and such design is called ”Gripping That Milk Bottle Better." It has an especially interesting handle placement, where it is quite high on the bottle.
Let us first talk about the negatives to this design, I hate the slight curve to the overall design. It reminds me of, well, college inappropriate tools. One more thing I am not too big of a fan is the image of a cow on the packaging. Now I know this is not the worst thing in the world, everybody has it on their packaging, but to me that is what makes it bad, that it blends in with the rest of the milk jugs when it comes graphically.
But despite this one thing I do like the handle placement, as we can see its right at the top, which to me gives a better pour feeling. I also really like the dark green used throughout the packaging, this is a nice spice up from the usual brighter green of other milks, it also gives the product a more expensive feeling since the green looks so rich. One more thing I like about this milk design is the font choice, it is a little fancy, but not times new roman fancy, which to me really adds with the cooky design of the jug.
This is the other milk jug design I am going to be pulling inspiration from. This was made by a designer called Muhammet Uzuntaş, whilst the design itself is simply called ”M I L K”. Now, let us first talk about what I do not like bout this packaging. I do not like the lack of colours.
I can see some people arguing that the lack of colours let the packing itself shine, but me myself says that you need more than an interesting shape to catch people’s eyes when buying milk, since when you look for milk, you usually spot the colour first before the design, so I feel like it would be more important to add said colour. I also am not an enthusiastic fan of the overly simple logo, It is quite hard to read because of its thin font choice, along with its size compared to the size of the rest of the bottle.
With this, I should also say what I do like about this, and the first thing I noticed about the jug is, well, the shape. It is very recognisable and quite fun with its bubbly curves compared to the vulgar curves of the last jug along with its legs, that I find good selling point, because let us say you spill some milk on the counter, the legs will keep the bottom from touching the ground, meaning when you put it back in the fridge you will not have a bunch of spoilt milk on the shelf next time you look in there.
And so, after this research, the only thing we can do is begin designing!
Before making the final product, the first thing I wanted to do is try and refine the design. I knew I wanted a couple of trates from the Grippy Milk Bottle and M I L K but in a more effective package when it comes to storage. There is much to look at, but the main part I wanted to focus on is less about the drawing themselves, but instead the description of the designs, or also known as annotations.
Now, what do I think of the work that has been produced here? I think it has been quite good. It is mainly just a bed for refining and finding the design I wanted, so its nothing exactly artist worthy, but for the function that it serves, it's fit for purpose.
Was it successful? I definitely think so, as said before its mainly a piece to work on the final design, but even without the fact of it being nothing that had too much visual effort in, for me it holds a nice charm to look at. But this isn't a graphic, so that doesn't really matter, but yes this indeed was.
What would I do moving forward with this? Probably add more annotations talking about more finer details like the material I want it to be made out of, more visuals of the cap long with a full 360 of the product.
Would I revisit this? no. This has already served its purpose, and so I don't see the point of coming back to it.
And with this, we finally have Design 5, My final Visualisation Diagram.
This is the final design I have outputted; I would put more time into this, but I have got things to do I will be honest. As you can see, we have two design features from the examples I have shown. We have the nubs from M I L K, along with the handle from the Grippy Milk.
What do I think of this work? I think it’s quite good, although simple in design, the annotations really help you visualise it when you read them. I also like the colours I’ve chosen for the milk, along with the blocky design which you don’t see when it comes to big milk jugs.
Was it successful? Absolutely. I set out with the idea of making a blocky milk jug to make it easy to store whilst still looking visually appealing, along with other critiques I have for milk jugs, and in this design, I think I have covered every problem I have with them.
What would have I done differently? I don’t think I would’ve done anything different right now, it’s almost perfect when it comes to what it has right now. But what would I do to develop this? I would first get measurements on how tall and long the package should be, from the nubs and the handle to the twist off cap. I would also add more annotation overall for textures, materials that I would use and more pictures of the jug but from different angles, like the bottom, the top and different sides of the packaging. And even after all of that, my final thing I would love to do is to try and make this with cardboard and paper, so I could have a working prototype.
Would I revisit this in the future? I would love to, because I’m used to making a lot of visualisation diagrams like this, I also like designing products, with the research you can do, making prototypes and going over it again and again util you have a product you’re happy with is what really excites me about making products like packaging.
Comments