Designing for the Heat
The sweltering summer heat is finally here! The spectre of climate change still looms large over it – given all those random spells of rain and whatnot – but let’s face it, the heat is here to stay. And perhaps, for longer than before.
All ominous chitchat aside, there is something to be said about designing for summer. For designers, summer presents an opportunity to create design solutions that capture the essence of the season and help people make the most of their time in the sun.
We are looking to explore some of the key elements of designing for summer, with some of our work that follows our advice. That’s how you know we are putting our money where our mouth is.
Colour me Cool (Or Warm?)
When it comes to summer, colour is king! Bright, bold, and vibrant colours are the way to go. Think beach balls, popsicles, and tropical drinks. Incorporate these summer-inspired colours into your designs and watch them come to life! From sunny yellows to ocean blues,
the options are endless. Forget about colour combinations at your own peril here: pairing colours like coral and turquoise or pink and green can create a fun and playful summer vibe.
Our packaging design for La Shield sunscreen illustrates this. We opted for deeper shades of yellow and orange, choosing to contrast it with blues and whites. The image of a sandy beach with azure skies just compels the customer to allude to a time where sunscreen isn’t an option – it’s a necessity, and a pleasant one at that.
Love is in the Air
Health conscious or not, there’s no summer without ice-cream (and we hear there’s all kinds of healthy options for those now too!). And ice-creams have always been all about making the best of your summer vacation – creating special moments with your friends, or significant others.
Our team took this ‘bonding time’ theme and implemented it with our packaging design for Vadilal Flingo – Vadilal's cone ice cream range, designed to beat the heat! Deviating from the usual norms of using realistic imagery to add to the drool factor, we created fruit-personas with playful imagery that showcase the bond between any two people: not just lovers. That ‘enjoying an ice-cream together’ moment is more priceless than we give it credit for!
The Summer Type-Cast
It’s a no-brainer for designers to amplify their work via the potent use of typography. The right font captures the essence of the season. Consider the context in which it will be used, and it can work out splendidly! A bold, sans-serif font might be appropriate for a beach party flyer, while a more elegant serif font might be better suited for a wedding invitation – context, of course, is everything.
It's also important to consider the readability of your font. Summer designs can often incorporate a lot of text, so choosing a font that is easy to read is crucial – it must also contrast with your colours.
For some, there is no better duet than beer and summer, so let’s look at Witlinger as an example! Our work for this craft beer brand uses summer colours – yellows and oranges – to profound effect, where the story of its sociable, cool British Bulldog Mascot looking to chill out is underscored by “Boldly British”, an allusion to its legacy. This font used for its flavour variants and this legacy call-back is playful yet makes the desired impact and lifts it out of its traditionalist bracket into a fresh, modern outlook. Shades, dark glasses, goggles, whatever you may call them, it is the coolest summer accessory.
Zero-Sum-Imagery-Game
Imagery is another key component of summer design. Whether you are designing for print or digital, incorporating images that capture the essence of the season can help create a strong emotional connection with your audience. While typical thematic imagery includes beaches and sunsets, adding in a healthy variety of other elements like citrus fruit, pool toys or outdoor games can help.
Another strong, yet underutilized summer theme is that of well-being. For most of the world, summer is a call for a vacation, with an increased focus on consuming chilled beverages to stay hydrated. But most of them happen to have a high sugar content. And that can be unhealthy in the long term.
So, to help understand how powerful imagery can be, we can look at our work for Paper Boat Zero – which infuses your summer with nostalgia and the promise of fresh, new starts! The packaging for Paper Boat’s Zero Sugar Sparkling Water range is all about conveying crisp, fruity goodness with an emphasis on Zero: everything that needs to be absent for you to feel your healthy best. The design appeals to fitness enthusiasts and summer-beverage-hounds alike, while portraying goodness that is firmly a part of Paper Boat’s brand identity.
The Symphony of Beating the Heat
Design is often a delicate balance between aesthetics and functionality – and more so when it comes to product design. At Elephant, no person in the chain is as important as the end user, and we are constantly looking at ways in which we can add functionality above and beyond the product’s basic premise.
For instance, in the spirit of summer, think about what a water bottle does. When designing one, you can always incorporate ‘nice-to-haves’ like a built in, self-cleaning straw mechanism or a sturdy attachment clip for backpacks and other surfaces.
Our design for the Symphony DüET Mini cooler aims to do exactly that. Deviating from the standard clunky, space-occupying cooler unit that’s also very movement resistant was the need of the hour. Our answer comes in the form of a cooler that is sleek, ultramodern, ultra-portable and fits into your array of desktop devices like speakers or other tech. Its obelisk structure allows for standard cooling capacities with strong air-throw for its size, while also making it modular enough to be moved around and kept in the smallest spaces for individual cooling.
Our summer advice bottom line? It’s straightforward but a little tricky when it comes to practice. It requires careful consideration of colour, typography, imagery, and functionality. By incorporating elements that capture the essence of the season, you can create solutions that resonate with the audience and create a strong emotional connection.