Lumen Oil

Design: Warm yellow socks
Location: Russia
Creative director: Alyona Trifonova
Illustrator: Natalia Lebedeva
Designer: Evgeny Korolev
Copywriter: Marina Danilova
Product: Oil

Task: to create a new premium oil brand and make a packaging design.

We love to cook and often use oil. We saw many interesting types of oils, but it turned out that the packaging we could like is harder to find among them. That’s why we decided to create it ourselves.

We started from associations. Oils are stunningly beautiful in shades ranging from sunny yellow to golden caramel. When added to dishes, they sparkle like precious drops and shimmer in the sun, as if they consist of light just poured into bottles. This is how we decided to present oil – drops of light poured into bottles. We have built a semantic connection with the help of images, phonetics and storytelling.

We wrote a beautiful brand legend telling about the fairy princess Lumen. Lumen collects drops of light, gently fills bubbles with them and sends all over the world so that people can add a little magic to their lives everywhere.

The name of the character wasn’t a random choice. It was supposed to become the name of the brand and to emphasize the association of oils with light. We chose the word “lumen” which is not as straightforward as the word “light”. It fits the meaning and has a magical shade. It also reminds the familiar spell from the tale of Harry Potter “lumos” (“lumos”), which was used there to turn the light on.

In addition to etymology, the reason for choosing the word “lumen” was its pleasant sound [l’]. It is also presented in the word “oil”. Try to say the phrase out loud and you will feel how you enjoy this phonetic music – “lumen oil”.

We gave the brand’s character a gentle face, lush hair with pearls and flowers. The color of the hair is neutral and closer to light brown, so both blondes and brunettes could associate themselves with the princess. Long flowing yellow dress emphasizes the character’s specificity – it seems to glow itself. The image turned out to be magical, feminine, but without sexual overtones.

Of course, an oil brand could include several product options: olive, sesame, pumpkin oil and many others. How could we express the identity of each of them on the sticker in a unique way, extending the brand story to all bottles? We decided to do this by adding different light sources to the plot: stars, the moon, the sun, comets, and so on.

Choosing a color scheme, we looked what type of background will highlight our character and plot in the most noticeable and bright way. We chose a dark tone to emphasize the premium quality of the product and complemented it with a second main color. So we got the following color combinations.

• Dark + deep blue + yellow for the starry night.
• Dark + green + yellow for the mysterious moon.

The slogan of the brand “A drop of light in your dishes”. It sounds concise and perfectly conveys the brand’s legend. We complemented the slogan on the sticker with a sparkling drop, which can be perceived in this context as a drop of oil or light both.

For the presentation, we chose a round shape of a dark glass bottle and created a sticker for it. However, it could be adapted for any kind of bottle, larger or smaller. The sticker will also look great on a light glass bottle due to the contrast and yellow accents. The layout and texts could be changed and supplemented with any information.

The plots we chose for the first stickers are dynamic. They show different actions of the character. The feeling of movement is created by the effect of slightly blurry, as if trembling, light sources, flowing hair and folds of the dress, as well as oblique lines that dynamically trace the image. We literally feel the wind blowing, the air movement in the picture. Such dynamics are much more interesting to look at than statics.

We added the water surface as a required element of the plot. The overflowing waves make a reference to the oily consistency of the product inside the bottle. In addition, when several bottles are drawn in a row, a horizon line of the same level is formed, while the assortment looks unified.

A clear structure of the sticker construction is visible:

• top block with brand and product identifiers;
• middle block with a plot;
• lower block with reflection in the water surface and less significant information.

The logo, the sort of oil, the main sources of light and the drop in the slogan are supposed to be highlighted with a voluminous varnish so that they become convex and tangible. This will add a pleasant tactile moment to the packaging.

Why would people want to buy the LUMEN brand?

Surprise
We only notice the world around us if it doesn’t meet our expectations. Unexpected pictures disrupt habitual patterns of perception and trigger the neurobiological process that controls attention. There are no packages similar to our design on the shelf yet, so the customer’s attention is guaranteed, and this is the first step to purchase.

Character
Looking at a pretty face activates the brain’s pleasure center. A whole part of the brain is responsible for the perception of faces, and it is activated, even if the perceived faces are drawn. That’s why the nice character we created is a brand advantage.

Escapism
Each brand tells how it could help consumer to achieve certain goals. Goals are divided into explicit ones, they are easy to realize (quality, price – here companies most often try to compete), and implicit, psychological ones that elude from the direct awareness.

A brand could build its real difference from competitors based on implicit goals.

The LUMEN brand creates a link between the product and the implicit goal of escapism. Escapism means the avoidance of all sorts of unpleasant and boring things in life by reading, thinking about something more interesting. This is an escape from an everyday gray reality.

The magic plot, the beautiful legend charm a consumer, he could admire images, think through the story. After all, it’s a real fairy tale, created to distract from problems! This becomes to have a special meaning in the current situation of the increased anxiety in the society.

Phonosemantics
The main letter in the brand name is soft [l ‘] – this is a sonorous sound, front-lingual. Psychologically “l” is associated with the concepts of smoothness (liana), evenness (polish), fluidity (flow), ideality (angel).
The second important letter in the brand name is “u”. Its combination with “l” makes the lips fold in a tube when pronouncing, as during a kiss.
Thus, the word “lumen” is already associated at a subconscious level with smoothness, soft outpouring of the distant light. This very closely matches the essence of the product (oil) and its legend (light).
When a brand name on a subconscious level associatively coincides with its essence, it pushes the consumer to the idea that he makes a right choice.

Legend
People love stories! Our ancestors, hunters and gatherers, for many thousands of years sat around the fire and told each other stories. Information used to be transmitted in such format. That’s why the legend on the brand’s packaging is the beginning of a successful communication. As soon as the story begins, the depths of our mind open up, it is interested and ready to receive the message.

Now you understand that we created this case not only as a beautiful and unusual one. We thought out every tiny detail in the most thoroughly way. Everything was added to the brand with a special reason and meaning. The whole set of techniques we used will work for the success of the brand.