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Rowdy Mermaid
Design, Art Direction, Copywriting
Identity
Rowdy Mermaid is on a mission to give the world delicious, sustainably-sourced plant medicine through functional wellness beverages. When Rowdy Mermaid's kombucha was launched nationally with Whole Foods, they needed an in-house Senior Designer & Art Director to define the brand's visual identity. With strong influences of nordic minimalism balanced with playful applications of color, clean lines, and strong geometry, Rowdy Mermaid's aesthetic was able to convey a brand that was ready to both scale to new heights and live up to its boisterous name.
Consistency
Being an in-house creative for a CPG brand requires a lot of coordination across numerous activation efforts. Managing a large and diverse pool of external partners - i.e. influencers, content creators, filmmakers, photographers, social media managers, shopper marketing consultants, etc. - requires strong vision and efficacious guidance in order to ensure consistency and longevity with brand expression.
Photography
With iconic, eye-catching pack design, the brand needed photography that felt like an extension of the can itself - without overpowering it. In addition to more traditional mood boards, a set of "is/is-not's" were utilized in briefs for photographers and videographers - Rowdy Mermaid's visual expression is alive but not busy, colorful but not artificial, composed but not predictable, luscious but not seductive, and adventurous - but not only outdoorsy.
Social media
The key to social media is strategy and adaptability. The strategy developed for Rowdy Mermaid was to leverage content pillars to not only keep things fresh and exciting in-feed, but to act as an A/B test for different forms of content to see which performed best. The ability to adapt to quickly passing trends is also something that can set a brand apart - but there needs to be more long term planning beyond simply adopting viral memes (i.e. shifting to predominantly video-forward content, utilizing the newest in-app features for boosts in the algorithm, etc.)
Packaging & print materials
The majority of work performed for Rowdy Mermaid was packaging and print material design, including but not limited to: pack designs for new Kombucha flavors, rebranding an entire product line of Sparkling Tonics, designing packcepts for new product innovation ideas, creating swag and merchandise to bolster brand stickiness, and developing effective retail POS materials.