I originally started investigating the actual labels on bottles, and found a few interesting trends:

• There seemed to be a consistent color scheme - predominantly blues;
• There were a series of consistent terms being used, over and over in labels:
  • Pure
  • Spring
  • Natural
  • Healthy
  • etc.

Color Combinations

I started experimenting with various color combinations – and worked on Adobe’s Kuler Color website to explore various shades, tints and tonal combinations.

Label Design Exploration

In addition, I started exploring some of the terminology, along with various color palettes in the design of my own label variations, based on the research I was finding about the environmental and financial trauma caused by bottled water consumption.

NOT From A Mountain

This design was inspired by the fact that mountains are a common visual theme found on many bottle labels, despite the fact that often, the water is extracted far from any actual mountainous terrain. The idea that water extracted from a mountain spring somehow makes it cleaner or more attractive is a constant theme, along with the consistent blue color scheme. Historically, blue is a cool, refreshing, calm color. I experimented with what would happen with a label if the color scheme was changed, to use a more drastic, non-traditional one. Oranges, reds, greens, yellows and blacks were used as predominant colors.

PUREwaste

“Pure Water” was a phrase I saw over and over again when I inspected the various bottle labels. It seemed that regardless of where or how the water was obtained, that simply including “Pure” in the label, description or name, was enough to sell gallons of it. Most of the purity claims were unfounded – or, they included scientific sounding words or descriptions of mineral deposits, that well, HAD to mean it was pure. Right?

“PUREwaste” came out of the irony that really, the only pure things in the equation were being wasted – natural resources to make the bottles, fossil fuels to move the product, in fact, even water is wasted in the process of filtering and bottling. And let’s not forget about the obvious – money. Mostly YOURS.