Dragon Saliva — Packaging Design

Writing about how I designed the packaging for one of the world's most spicy hot sauce and explaining the design decisions behind it 2021-09-08

Intro

A little while ago, my father and I created a recipe for some of the world's most spicy hot sauce without breaking the bank. However, if we ever want to sell it as a product, we would need some sort of packaging to go along with it. We had already received tiny 1mL glass bottles to put the sauce in, but that clearly wouldn't cut it.

Since I have some experience in UI design, I figured I would try and create a small label to put on the bottle as well as a paper cover to make it look professional.

Graphic Design

Below are two screenshots and two photos of the packaging I designed using Figma and produced using Vistaprint.

I chose to use a dark background along with red-orange hues to intensify the fact that this sauce is incredibly spicy. It uses a simple sans-serif font and has a white interior to give it a clean and modern look. On the rear side of the paper cover, I inserted a dynamic QR code so that I can change where it points even after printing it permanently on paper.

If you have a close look at the warning section, you might be able to notice the following:

Do not ingest. May cause severe pain.

It may seem very contradictory to create hot sauce that cannot be ingested. However, it is in fact a very clever trick my father came up with...

If we don't want to bother with food regulations, we'll simply maket it as non-consumable!

Legally, this product isn't hot sauce. It is simply chili extract packaged in a certain way. There are even warnings telling the consumer to avoid ingesting it and breathing its fumes. Trying to sue us will be like trying to sue a company for having eaten the chemicals they produce. At least that's in theory!

3D Design

The only thing left to do was to find a way to hold the bottle inside the paper cover. I wanted to use a non-permanent solution so that it could be I used as a stand for the bottle instead of simply getting thrown away. Here is what I came up with:

Since the greater part of the design is only 0.6 mm thick, the whole thing prints in under 15 minutes on my 3D printer, the Ender 3. This was essential because, as everyone knows, the shorter the printing time, the larger the volume we can produce. After gluing it on the inside of the paper cover, I inserted the bottle in the 3D printed clip. Below are two photos of the final result.

What's Next?

This is my first attempt at creating a commercial product, and it's been a great learning opportunity for me. My father and I have sold a few bottles to friends and family, but we'd like to get it up on an online store such as Ebay in the near future. If you'd like to give it a try right now, hit me up!