The Black Pearl

Packaging Design / Fall 2022 / Art Direction: Abby Guido

The Black Pearl

The Black Pearl is a wine gift box set that is located on the Classic Coast, also known as Newport, Rhode Island. Newport is a small city filled with sailboats, seagulls, and summer days. It is well known for the annual sailing regatta which was the inspiration for the nautical aesthetic that is portrayed through the designs of the three varieties of wines. The three wines that are included are Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio and Syrah Rosé, perfect notes for a summer evening.

This wine gift box set has partnered with Ecovative, a company who uses packaging made from mycelium, also known as mushrooms. Ecovative’s mission is to provide a sustainable, biodegradable packaging as a solution to plastic pollution. By using their two simple ingredients (mycelium and hemp herd) Ecovative offers an eco-friendly packaging alternative that can protect and support the items that are being delivered to you.

Process

As a way to combine the purpose and goals of both The Black Pearl and Ecovative, I wanted to focus the wine brand on restoring our ocean’s ecosystem, while creating and delivering delicate wine flavors for everyone to enjoy. For The Black Pearl, I was inspired by the beautiful scenery and nautical lifestyle of Newport, Rhode Island. I wanted to incorporate imagery of the ocean, such as sailboats and anchors and combine that with wine bottles, as portrayed on the three flavors. In addition, the color palette reflects a nautical theme, so a dark navy blue, brown and lighter blue felt perfect for my brand. For the logo on the front of the box, illustrating a sailor was an effective way to create a recognizable symbol that summarizes the wine gift box set as a whole. The three wine varieties have different imagery on their logos, so the sailor logo on the front of the box represents the entire brand.

Ecovative

The Black Pearl’s mission is to deliver tasteful wines to consumers, while preventing the negative effects of packaging waste. Single use packaging is one of the leading causes of global waste, amounting to 82.2 million tons in 2018, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. To decrease the harmful packaging waste problem, The Black Pearl has partnered with “Ecovative,” a company who uses biodegradable packaging made from mushrooms as a replacement for styrofoam, or other forms of protective packaging material. Ecovative’s main ingredients being shredded hemp and mushroom mycelium allow consumers to receive well protected, fully intact wine bottles, while also having a few options in the disposal of the packaging. People can either throw away their packaging in the garbage, or break up the mushroom packaging to throw on soil, a compost pile, or outside anywhere. Ecovative’s mushroom packaging gives back to the Earth, in a passionate effort to save our ecosystem.

Next Steps

The Black Pearl has the potential to grow and expand into a more extensive wine brand that can explore many different series of wines. Right now, the flavors included are Chardonnay, Syrah Rosé and Pinot Grigio, which are a combination of fruity and dry wine flavors. In the future, it would be interesting to include a series of red wines, which could have its own specific look. A lighter color palette while still keeping the nautical theme would create a nice contrast to the actual red wine color and a lighter version of the design that is portrayed on the current series.

Additionally, taking a deeper dive into how The Black Pearl could make more of an impactful difference in terms of helping the ocean’s ecosystem would be a significant next step. Ecovative is a great start, but exploring more options into how the involvement of other restorative ocean services can become apart of The Black Pearl would be even better.

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