Responses by Mark Christou, founder and creative partner, ROOK/NYC.
Background: Come late summer 2021, with more regular consumer habits on the return, Matt Sayre, founder of the sparkling drink brand Shrubbly, approached us to help elevate Shrubbly beyond the level of his earlier-established functional beverage category competitors. We were able to do exactly that by maximizing education without losing premium appeal—no target audience, but a target mindset. Shrubbly is crafted for consumers that want a better-for-you beverage without sacrificing flavor.
Design thinking: The current category of functional beverages leans towards mass-marketed, often youthful approaches: bright colors, traditional typefaces and abstracted illustrations. We saw Shrubbly’s differentiation as a major asset that required more visibility than the existing packaging. Shrubbly, still carefully crafted from Sayre’s Vermont farm ingredients, celebrates the unique health benefits of shrub fermentation, from the fruit chosen to the organic honey added to the natural health benefits of apple cider vinegar. With so many positive layers of the brand, we were challenged to create a packaging system that conveyed each aspect to the consumer.
Challenges: Finding a unique visual language in a growing competitive market of the functional beverage category. We developed the brand identity and design to tell a story about the world of shrubs and the spirit of the wilderness that comes from this farm-to-can brand. The intensity of the black paired with bright, bold, tasty colors helped set Shrubbly apart from its competitors and has set a path that the brand can now own. We felt that this look embraced the brand’s ethos: “Believing in chasing dreams and making good by working hard, taking our best shot and pressing on.”
Favorite details: We’re proud of our ability to effectively translate the mission and tastes of Shrubbly onto the can in a visually intriguing way. The black can is an extremely bold statement for the current functional beverage space, but we found a way to make the entire design look appetizing, inviting and distinguished while standing out on the shelf.
New lessons: Given our extensive experience working with the beverage space, creating entirely new design languages is an ongoing challenge. This project taught us that we can continue to creatively push ourselves when we partner with unique clients. Each beverage brand we’ve partnered with has something special that makes them stand apart from its competitors. Our job is to bring that trait forward and highlight the differences that make our partners special.
Visual influences: The intensity and wildness of the unique flavors and Shrubbly processes are what inspired us to create the matte-black can. It expresses a strong presence on the shelf with contrasting bright ingredient illustrations and typography. Flavor expectations and health benefits are set at the top of the can, with various subheadings calling out additional positive attributes of the drink. We designed the can with visual intrigue front of mind, aiming to continue Sayre’s celebration of Shrubbly’s unique qualities and the carefully curated ingredients that go into each can. The centered illustrations and eyebrow-shaped logo set the focal point on said ingredients, getting customers to recognize the shapes of lemons, ginger and pomegranate while embracing the potentially new shapes and descriptors of aronia berries and apple cider vinegar.
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