Urbane Kitchen Supplies | Illustration

Brand concept for a kitchen supplies company, Urbane. Urbane encourages cooking at home by giving people the confidence to be in the kitchen through design that is modern and casual. Urbane is inspired by the idea of cooking as a form of art.

The name “Urbane”, is derived from mid–16th century French or Latin terms to describe a person who is refined in manner or is sophisticated. I wanted to create graphics in the same style as fine art paintings that were collected by the wealthy during that era to represent their status or wealth.

I first created the logo icon by scanning a swatch sample that I painted on canvas and converting it to a digital image. Illustrations are hand drawn on Photoshop using pencil and paint brushes and printed on recycled craft paper. The nostalgia of traditional art is expressed while maintaining a personal and contemporary appeal through use of sans-serif typeface.

During the mockup process, I experienced a lot of trial and error in choosing the type of paper. The brand called for a sustainable and craft paper. To ensure the best graphic quality without losing the details and vibrancy of the artwork when it goes to print production, I had to make sure the paper was durable and did not compromise the artwork's colors. Additionally, for every different type of kitchen utensil, I had to reformat each design layout to accommodate the product packaging.

I decided to use vegetables and fruits as the main graphics for the packaging because they are the main ingredients to cooking and offered a vibrant color palette. Each illustration was created on Photoshop using paint brush tools that mimicked the same textures as paint and charcoal. One layer uses a solid color swatch that is similar to the brand logo. Another layer is a detailed painting of the vegetable or fruit and an outline version using simple line work on top.